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A 1,000,485
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G
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WRECKING
THE
LABOR
BANKS
By
WM. Z, FOSTER
A sfi^{H&hpi of die reaction-
jury labor offictaJdom in m
QTgf of looting the trtasurj
of the B« of L, E*
2S CEsm
MISLEADERS OF LABOR
By Wm. 7. FosTKR
Cloth — $1.75 Paper — $1.25
%ORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS
39 EAST I2StJ> STREET MW YORK ClTj
^m.
I
i WORKERS LIBRARY U^mhet S
The
TROTSKY
OPPOSITION
Its Significance for American JVorkets
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THE WORKERS LIBRARY
No. 1— THE TENTH YEAR — TA* Rise and
Achievements of Soviet Russia (1917-1927)
By J. Louis Encdahl . . . . 10 CENTS
No. 2— THE COOLIDGE PROGRAM — C«i^to/«<
Democracy and Prosferity Exfosed
By Jay Lovestone 5 CENTS
No. 3— QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS TO AMERI-
CAN TRADE UNIONISTS-^to/m'x Interview
with the First American Trade Union Delegation to
Soviet Russia 25 CENTS
No. 4— 1928 — THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
AND THE WORKERS
By Jay Lovestone 50 CENTS
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The
TROTSKY
OPPOSITION
/// Significance for American Workers
BERTRAM D? WOLFE
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS
39 EAST I25TI1 STREET NEW YCRK
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DK
, WIS
Copyright 1^28 by
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS, INC.
Printed in the U, S. A.
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S3^tTD CONTENTS
PART I
The Trotsky Opposition
PAGE
1. Leaders and Controversies 7
2. What Caused the Crisis 11
3. The Nature of the Opposition Block 17
4. The Political Theory of the Opposition 23
5. The Economic Theory of the Opposition 29
6. The Practical Proposals of the Opposition 34
7. The Opposition and the Party. 41
8. The Opposition and the C. 1/ ....... 47
9. The Question of the. Chinese Opposition 50
10. The Defense of the Soviet Union 54
PART II
America Discusses the Opposition
1. Typical Viewpoints 58
2. The Gossip of Max Eastman 64
3. Lore's Bridge to Socialism 73
4. Salutsky Earns His Hire 81
5. Abramovich Gives the Socialist View 84
6. What the Liberals "Think" 90
7. Trotskyism As A "Jewish" Issue 93
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We take the occasion of the publi-
cation of No. 5 of the Workers Lib-
rary to express our gratitude to Com-
rades Bertha and Samuel Rubin
of Minneapolis, Minn., who, together
with a group of other comrades and
sympathizers, have made it possible
for the Workers Library Publishers
to carry on its work.
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The Trotsky Opposition
Its Significance for American Workers
By BERTRAM D. WOLFE
CHAPTER I.
LEADERS AND CONTROVERSIES
The differences in the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union are of such character that they involve the course and
future of that Party and the country which it guides. They
also involve the policy and the fate of the Communist Inter-
national, leader of the world working class.
Many workers approach the controversy from the stand-
point oiF personal feelings, of sentimental attachment to this
or that leader and find it very difficult for these reasons to sec
the fundamental political questions involved. Therefore, it
IS necessary to say a word about the role of personalities and
leaders in a revolutionary movement.
Revolutionary movements involve swift and rapid change.
He who today is followed, tomorrow may be without a fol-
lowing. He who today is loved, tomorrow may be fought.
The history of all revolutions is full of examples of rapid
change, the failure of certain persons to keep pace with that
change, and the rapidity and remorselessness with which his-
tory sweeps them aside.
There is the example of PlechanofF, founder of the Russian
Social-Democratic Party, Marxist theoretician, and leader of
that movement for many years, and yet when the time came
that he failed to lead aright, then history swept by him and
the masses rejected his leadership.
There was the case of Kautsky. Today it is easy for the
conscious worker to see that he is an enemy of the working
class. But when Kautsky first began to lead in the wrong
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8 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
direction, it was hard for many workers blinded by personal
attachment and by sentiment to believe that one who had done
so much and served so long could become a renegade.
Soj^ too, many politically backward workers find it hard to
think clearly about Trotsky and Zinoviev. They use the meth-
ods oT~liefo=WDrship--i=ath#F--thaj^^ of political
analysis. It is hard for them to believe that Trotsky and
Zinoviev have come to represent a tendency hostile to the
interests of the working class, as it was hard for admirers of
Kautsky to believe that of him in 1914, or for admirers of
Plechanoff to believe it of him when he ceased to lead in the
right direction.
Therefore, in considering the controversy in the Commu-
nist Party of the Soviet Union, it is necessary for workers to
strip themselves of personal prejudices in favor of one or an-
other individual and to examine closely the political questions
involved and the tendencies that each individual represents.
We must see beyond persons to politics, beyond eloquence and
blinding phrases to their content, beyond the subjective inten-
tions of individuals to the actual objective direction in which
they are leading.
Nor is it suflScient to note that Zinoviev and Trotsky still
swear loyalty to Leninism, while they are attacking the prin-
ciples that k represents. The revision of Marxism by Bern-
stein and other revisionists was carriied on under the slogan of
"saving Marxism" precisely as the present revision of Lenin-
ism by the Opposition is carried on under the slogan of re-
storing the principles of "true Leninism." In short, neither
words nor personalities are to be considered, but the direction
in which the proposals of the Opposition would lead the work-
ing class of die Soviet Union and of the world.
CONTROVERSIES IN CAPITALIST PARTIES
A word about faction fights. Controversies concerning
policies occur in all parties. This is true of capitalist parties
as well as working class parties. In the Republican Party
(limiting ourselves to recent times) we have had the La Fol-
Ictte-Coolidge controversy and the Roosevelt-Taft control
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THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION 9
versy. Now we have the faction called the Progressive Bloc.
The same is true of the Democratic Party. The Smith-Mc-
Adoo fight of 1924 will serve as an example.
To the superficial observer these appear to be merely per-
sonal struggles for leadership. But even in the capitalist
parties, this is not so. They represent political differences on
program, due primarily to two things:
1 . The necessity of a party's changing its program to meet
changing conditions.
2. The class composition of the capitalist parties. (For
exanjple, the Republican Party is a party of big business, but
it has a large Western farmer and petty-bourgeois following
which exerts pressure for the incorporation of their own in-
terests in the program.)
DIFFERENCES IN A WORKERS* PARTY
A Communist Party is far more homogeneous in its class
character than the |lepublican or the Democratic Party. Nev-
ertheless, even the working class is not homogeneous. There
are various strata or layers in the working class. There are
skilled workers and unskilled workers. There are recently
declassed elements from other classes, who have become a
part of the labor movement.
A working class party does not operate in a vacuum, but
operates in a world in which other classes exist. Some ele-
ments of a working class party are more responsive to the
pressure of the viewpoint of other classes than are other ele-
ments. Sometimes by reading the capitalist press, sometimes
by association with members of other classes, sometimes from
members of one's family or from friends, sometimes by con-
tact with the bureaucracy of the trade unions and even while
in struggle against it — in short, in all sorts of ways some
members of the working class parties are affected by and
express the pressure of other sections of the population upon
their method of thinking. They thus bring into the working!
class party the viewpoints of other classes, although theyi
genuinely believe that they are expressing the working clas^'
viewpoint. ,
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10 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
Many workers believe that if Lenin were alive, there woulc
not now be such a controversy in the Communist Party of tht
Soviet Union. This is not so. The history of the German
labor movement while Marx was its leader and the history
of the Russian labor movement while Lenin was its leader
are full or records of such controversies.
MARX AND HIS OPPONENTS
Thus, while Marx was alive, than whom no man had more
authority in tlie revolutionary movement of his day, there
were continuous controversies between the tendency that he
represented and contrary tendencies. One need only mention
the bitter controversy between Marx and Bakunin, between
Marx and Proudhon, between Marx and Lasalle, between
Engels and Duhring, or, after the death of Marx, between
the Revisionists and the Marxists, to see that the whole history
of the movement that built up the Second International was a
history of such controversies about fundamental political
differences. AVe know now that these differences represented
•titfferences' of class viewpoint, but to many of the workers
J of that day, the differences were incomprehensible, and Marx
^ was accused of having a reckless love for controversy.
lenin's controversies
The same is true of the development of the Russian revolu-
tionary movement during the life of Lenin. One need only
mention the controversy between Lenin and the Populists,
between Lenin and the Economists, between Lenin and the
Legal Marxists, the struggle between Bolsheviks and Men-
sheviks, the controversy inside the Bolshevik Party over the
question of boycotting the Duma.
Or we may jump to the period after the revolution of
1917 and find that controversies continue inside the far more
homogeneous Communist Party. There was the struggle over
Brest-Litovsk, the controversy over the N. E. P., the contro-
versy over the nationalization and militarization of the trade
unions, the controversy over the question of democratic cen-
. tralism, the Workers Opposition, and many more.
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Idj
^' CHAPTER IL
WHAT CAUSED THE CRISIS
Controversies in a party tend to become peculiarly sharp and
acute at periods when history is at a turning point. What turn-
ing point have we reached in the history of the Soviet Union
.^ 1 which makes for a sharp controversy inside the Russian Party?
That turning point is due to a change in the character of the
international situation and a change in the character of the
internal situation of the Soviet Union.
In the international situation^ the outstanding characteristic
is the partial stabilization of capitalism in the post-war period.
' This involves a slowing-up of the revolutionary movement
* and raises the question:
V^hat is the fate of Soviet Russia, surrounded as she is by
I hostile capitalist governments? Can the Soviet Union, back-
, ward technically and with a majority of peasants, continue to
endure and build socialism while surrounded by imperialist
countries? This is one fundamental aspect of the controversy.
"The other or internal aspect is closely <coiui«G4ed'wrth the
above. The Soviet Union has made such progress in the build-
ing of industry that the question of the construction of social-
ism is no abstract one concerning the future, but a real and
pressing question of the present.
'!Hw^rst ye^iTS 'after -the. war and the. ^ouAtor-rerolution
were years in which very little could be accomplished in the
building of new industry, where most of the progress was in
the nature of restoration back to the pre-war levels, reoccupa-
tion of abandoned factories, reopening of flooded mines, re-
building of bridges and railroads, that had been destroyed by
intervention and counter-revolution. While some efforts were
made to build new industry and while there were important
changes in the character of industry, still the outstanding fea-
ture was one of reconstruction rather than new construction.
Now the Soviet Union has reached and passed the pre-war
level. It is at a stage today where it must build new industries,
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12 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
new factories, new railroads, electrify the country, build fac-
tories that manufacture something which Russia never manu-
factured before, namely, machinery. Further development in-
volves the problem of changing the Soviet Union from a pre-
dominantly agrarian country into a predominantly industrial
country, of bringing agriculture under the sway of industry,
of fusing agriculture and industry on a new basis, the basis of
socialist etonomy.
PATHS TO INDUSTRIALIZATION
But how does a country industrialize itself?
England industrialized itself by ruthless exploitation of col-
onies for hundreds of years. The Soviet Union cannot exploit
colonies. It is the enemy of colonial exploitation.
Germany industrialized itself by a war of conquest in which
it seized the iron and coal regions of Alsace-Lorraine and ex-
acted five billions of francs in "war reparations." But the
way of aggressive war and pillage of the defeated country is
impossible to the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union.
Old Czarist Russia made such little progress as it did in in-
dustrialization by inviting imperialist finance capital to take
over its resources (through concessions) and to exploit the Rus-
sian masses mercilessly. This also is against the principles on
which the Soviet Union is founded.
THE PROBLEM OF SOCIALIST ACCUMULATION
So the problem is, where will the Soviet Union get the
funds (the "capital") to build new industries, to industrialize
the nation, to build socialism?
Is it able out of its own resources, out of its own produc-
tion, to accumulate a surplus over immediate needs for so-
cialist construction?
Obviously this involves many difficulties and problems. Be-
fore analyzing the program of the opposition on this matter,
let us sum up some of the difficulties enumerated above.
1. The Soviet Union is an industrially backward country.
2. It was economically dependent upon other countries for
machinery, capital and manufactured products before the re-
volution.
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WHAT CAUSED THE CRISIS 1 3
3k The peasants far outnumber the workers.
4. It is completely surrounded by hostile qtpitalist nations.
5i For the last few years, there has been a simultaneous
growth in the strength of capitalism (partial stabilization) and
in the strength of the Soviet Union.
6. The imperialist powers are trying to prepare a new
attack upon the Soviet Union.
PESSIMISM OF THE bt>i>bsri'10N
These difficulties and problems terrify the opposition. Their
theoretical leader, Trotsky, never believed that it was p ossible
to build socialism in the Soviet Union . on the basis of its owiJ
inner forces. In fact, he did not even believe that it was
possible to maintain the rule of the workers in a single coun-
try, unless the revolution should promptly spread to other
countries. Thus he wrote during the war: /
". . . the building of a lasting regime of proletarian dic-
tatorship would only be conceivable on a European scale,
that is, only in the form of a federation of European
republics.
'*. . . It would be hopeless to believe . ^ . that for example
revolutionary Russia could maintain itself in the face of a
conservative Europe or a socialist Germany could exist isolated
in a capitalist world."
Lenin thought differently about this question, and the ten
years of existence of the Soviet Union prove that Lenin wa ^
right. Now the question is no longer: Can the Soviet Unioii
endure? but has become a question of a higher order, can th ^
Soviet Union build socialism?
In 1923 Trotsky reviewed the question and wrote:
"So long as the bourgeoisie remains in power in the rest
of the European countries, we are forced to seek an under-
standing with them in our struggle against isolation $ at the
same time, it can be said definitely that this understanding
can help us at best to heal this or that economic wound, to
make this or that step forward, but that a real upward swing
of socialist economy in Russia will only be possible after the
victory of the froletariat in the most imfortant countries o.
Eurofe," (Emphasis mine. — ^B. D. W.)
The same views have been defended by such opposition
he 1
of \
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14 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
leaders as Radek, Sokolnikov and Smilga and in a somewhat
modifi ed form by Zinoviev and Kamenev.
Mrom the above quotations, we see that Trotsky never aban-
doned his views about the impossibility of constructing social-
ism in a single country — in the Soviet Union. In this matter,
he agreed with the Mensheviks. When he joined the Bol-
sheviks in 1917, it was because he felt that the revolution
would spread swiftly to the rest of Europe, and he was thus
able to bury this fundamental difference with the Communists,
or at least keep it in the background. But the partial stabiliza-
tion of capitalism and the consequent delay of the revolution
in the rest of Europe brought Trotsky's disbelief in the possi-
bility of building socialism again to the foreground and caused
' an^>eute crisis in his views.
Pessimism and despair in the face of the difficulties of con-
structing socialism, panic in the face of the partial stabilization
of capitalism, exaggeration of the difficulties and problems
confronting the Soviet Union, failure to recognize the fact
that these problems are problems of growth and the result of
the tremendous progress made in the building up of Soviet
economy — this pessimism, alarmism, panic and despair are the
undertone of all the documents of the opposition.
At different stages of the controversy, they have caused the
opposition to exaggerate the strength of capitalism and the
weaknesses of the Soviet Union, to deny the possibility of con-
structing socialism, to predict the degeneration of the Soviet
Union, to see it sliding back toward capitalism, to predict the
degeneration of the Communist Party, to profess to see it
degenerating.
At the same time as the opposition denies the possibility of
constructing socialism or denies that progress is being made,
it proposes desperate "get-rich-quick" schemes, ultra-revolu-
tionary "short7Cuts" to the building of socialism.
At the same time that it exaggerates the strength of capi-
talism, the opposition proposes revolutionary-sounding "short-
cuts" to the world revolution, as in the case of the proposal
to break the Anglo-Russian Unity Committee (see Chapter
VIII) the premature proposal to break with the Kuo-Min
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i
WHAT CAUSED THE CRISIS 15
Tang (see Chapter IX), etc. Zinoviev went so far as to
"get rid of' stabilization altogether by the simple process of
proposing a thesis denying its existence and declaring stabiliza-
tion "at an end."
This question of stabilization is of special interest to the
American workers.
A LESSON FOR AMERICAN WORKERS
We live in a country where capitalism is still very power-
ful. We cannot even speak of a "stabilization of capitalism"
in America, because American capitalism was not at any time
so shaken as to be called "unstable" in the sense that tottering
European capitalism was. In fact, America is today the big-
gest reserve source of strength for world capitalism, and it
was largely on the basis of American loans and American aid
that stabilization was accomplished in the European countries.
This does not mean to say that American capitalism is
secure for all time, or that it does not face serious contradic-
tions in its further development. But for all its weaknesses
and contradictions, what stands put at the present moment is
its visible strength and power.
In such a period as this, it is not easy to be a Communist
in America. Those who are not generators of revolutionary
energy, those who lack faith in the development of the revo-
lutionary movement and in the certainty of ultimate victory,
those who lack the ability to do hard, steady, undramadc
detail work, the slow building of the foundation of a move-
ment, are of little use to the American revolutionary move-
ment today. Some of them give way to pessimism, skepticism
and despair, in which case they often drop out of the move-
ment altogether.
Others propose to give up the revolutionary tasks of the
movement and to adopt an opportunistic program. Or they
close their eyes to the actual objective situation in the country
and live with their imaginations in the European situation,
instead of attempting to grasp realistically the American situ-
ation and to adapt their program to it. Such comrades may
make all sorts of ultra-leftist proposals, which might be in
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16 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
oi'der if conditions were as they are in the more advanced
European countries, but which are dangerous and worse than
useless here in America.
REALISTIC ANALYSIS AND HARD WORK
What the movement needs in this period is calm analysis
of things as they are, hard, constructive work on the basis of
the opportunities which present themselves. The work is not
so "dramatic," it does not rush from one big success to another,
but there are many opportunities for realistic work.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORK
We must neither exaggerate the stability and strength of
American capitalism nor underestimate them. We must rec-
ognize the difficult conditions which we have to face for
work and at the same time we must recognize the tremendous
opportunities that the situation in the United States presents
to us, particularly in view of the fact that the field is virtually
abandoned to us, that the bureaucracy has openly abandoned
the class struggle and the leadership of the Socialist Party has
openly become a tail to the bureaucracy in the American
Federation of Labor, that in all America we are the only
clear voice speaking for a labor party, the only active force
urging and working consistently to organize the imorganized^
the only clear fighter against war and against imperialism^
and that our daily paper, the Daily Worker, is the only
daily paper that takes a position in favor of militant class
struggle.
Once the conditions are grasped as they are and tactics
properly developed on the basis of them, it becomes clear that
the Communist movement in America has a tremendous role
to play in the organizing of the working class industrially and
politically, in the saving and strengthening of the unions, in
the organization of the unorganized, in the building of a
labor party, in the defense of the elementary interests of the
American working class, both native and foreign born, in the
organization and development of our class forces, in the
building of a party and the raising of its ideological level and
the strengthening of its influence among the American masses.
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CHAPTER III.
THE NATURE OF THE OPPOSITION BLOC
The present opposition in the Communist Party of the So-
viet Union is distinguished in the first place by the fact
-that it is an alliance or bloc of every kind of opposition that
lias existed in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since
the revolution occurred. Every element that at one time or
another went into opposition to Lenin or to the policies of
Leninism and that could not find its way back to the line of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, has imited with
•every other such element, regardless of extremely differing^
and extremely contradictory, viewpoints and policies, because \
they are united in this one fundamental thing — opposition to j
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to its majority and |
to its political line.
.-^Therefore, the opposition bloc represents an unprincipled
combination of remnants of the old "Workers Opposition,*'
of the old "Democratic Centralism" controversy, incurable
opponents of the New Economic Policy, remnants of^jlje
Brest-Litovsk opposition, etc., etc. Then there is Trotsky^
who since 1903, with only two exceptions for a very brief
period, was in open conflict with Lenin and the line of Leniii
in the Russian revolutionary movement. Finally, theso^
•called "New Opposition" of Zinoviev and Kamenev, the l^t
and most recent opposition to the Central Committee and to
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The fact that Zinoviev and Kamenev, on the one hand,
and Trotsky on the other, can be united in a single bloc is
in itself a demonstration of the unprincipled character of the
opposition.
While Zinoviev was still a defender of the line of Lenin-
ism against Trotsky, he had this to say, summing up the re-
peated attacks of Trotsky upon that line: "To persist in advo-
peated attacks of Trotsky upon that line:
^To pentfft in advocating in the Bolshevik Party in the
C171 ^ ,
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18 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
/period of 1921-24, in the period of transition: (l) national-
X ization of trade unions ^ (2) greater 'freedom' of the state
/ apparatus from control of the party 5 (3) more attention to be
/ paid to experts (in Russian, *spetz') j (4) to guide the policy
/ of the party by the students' barometer j (5) to advise the
( postponement of the currency reform and howl about the doom
\ of the country J (6) to commence a semi-Menshevik campaign
\ against the comrades working in the party apparatus and in
\ favor of 'democracy' as interpreted by Comrade Trotsky last
\ year — all this, willy nilly, means objectively helping the new
>t^rgeoisie.
". . . in practice, although he himself does not desire to
do so, he is rendering a priceless service to the class
enemy. . , .
"Comrade Trotsky must once and for all give up 'saving
our party' from alleged errors. . . He must stop arranging
these regular Tarty crises' according to *time-table' every year
and recently every six months. It must be understood that
any attempt to put forward Trotskyism in the guise of Lenin-
ism by rush tactics must fail. In a word, it must be under-
stood that Bolshevism is Bolshevism." (The Lessons of
October.)
In 1924, Zinovicv and Kamenev demanded the immediate
expulsion of Trotsky from the political committee. When
this was rejected by the party, they began an attack upon its
leadership, declaring that they were defending Trotskyism,
making a secret alliance with Trotsky against the correct
Leninist line, and intended to revise it in the direction of
Trotskyism.
Yet in a short while, Zinoviev was m alliance with Trotsky,
then defending him and finally accepting his program and
leadership. For Trotsky is the real leader of the opposition.
TROTSKY LEADS THE OPPOSITION
Why is Trotsky the leader? First, because he was the most
consistent o ppo n e n t of the line of Lenin in the Russian revo-
lutionary movement, from 1903 to the present date. Second,
because he has the most rounded-out philosophy of opposition.
Third, because he is not only the most experienced opposition
leader but also he is the most experienced in the building of
such opposition blocs (he built a similar imprincipled bloc
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THE NATURE OF THE OPPOSITION BLOC 19
^ ^^
against Lenin in 1912). Finally, because Trotsky has a pecu-
liar gift of eloquent phrase with which to make palatable to
revolutionary workers an unrevolutionary program. He is a
master of the gift of concealing a program running counter
to the interests of the revolutionary movement, in ultra-
revolutionary-sounding left phrases.
LEFT PHRASES AND OPPORTUNIST CONTENT
It is important to examine this last point in more detail.
If we can learn to see beyond and through the revolutionary
phrase to its objective political content, then we have indeed
learned a very important lesson for the working class move-
ment. Therefore, it is worth while examining a few ex-
amples of Trotsky's skill in disglusing proposals which run i
counter to the path of the revolution in ultra-revolutionary
phraseology. I will give a few examples.
When the Bolshevik fraction was formed in 1903, Lenin
already foresaw that a separation of Bolsheviks and Men-^
sheviks was necessary, that when the revolution came the \
Mensheviks would be on the wrong side of the barricades I
fighting against the revolution. Trotsky fought Lenin with I
such high-sounding phrases as "Lenin is cutting pieces out of /
the flesh of the working class." Objectively, this meant n<y v
Bolshevik party was to be formed. What would this hayc
meant for the Russian working class in 1917?
"permanent revolution"
In the period of the 1905 revolution, Trotsky developed^
a theory similar to the Mensheviks, leaving the peasantry out
of account. His theory that the working class could not ally
with the peasantry, had to split with them in seizing power
and clash with them, he clothed in the phrase "Permanent// V"^
revolution." What could sound more revolutionary tha
"permanent revolution"? Yet objectively, such an attitud
towards the peasantry meant no revolution at all.
To express the relation of workers to peasants and the
necessity of this alliance completing the tasks that the for-
merly revolutionary bourgeoisie were abandoning, Lenin pro-
posed for the 1905 period the slogan: "Democratic dictator-
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20 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
ship of workers and peasants." Trotsky's "revolutionary im--
patience" expressed itself in the slogan: "Down with the
/Czar, up with a labor government." A fine-sounding slogan*
( But as Lenin pointed out, it left out the peasants and it left
\ out the bourgeois democratic tasks of the transition period.
\ Another "revolutionary short-cut" that escapes the difficulties
\ and problems of the revolution by never even starting ta
Nteckle them.
"the united states of Europe"
Let us skip to the World War period. In that period, Lenia
urged the turning of the imperialist war into a civil war.
Lenin urged the slogan: We must fight for the defeat of our
own master class; and he said: "It is obvioxis that any one
who does not fight for the defeat of his own master class
cannot make a genuine struggle to turn the imperialist war
into a civil war or revolution."
Trotsky was also against this slogan. As usual, his slogan
promised more than Lenin's. Lenin, he declared, was "fol-
lowing the path of least resistance" and suflFering from "na-
tional narrowness."
"Not defeat of one's own master class" said Trotsky "but
a revolutionary struggle against war." It seems as if he is
"oflFering" more than Lenin, but subtract from the idea of
civil war the idea of the defeat of your own master class^
Vand what is left? Nothing! A completely empty phrase
1 with a revolutionary sound and with a counter-revolutionary
content.
Coupled with this was Trotsky's demand "Not socialisn>
in a single country but the United States of Europe." History
does not work that way. The revolution does not start every-
where at once. Now the crisis is sharpest in one country and
\now in another. Every revolutionist must be ready to start
in his own country to defeat first his own bourgeoisie.
THE BREST-LrrOVSK PEACE
After the revolution came the question of Brcst-Litovsk*
The need of the hour was peace, and a chance to build up
industry and the Red Army. Therefore Lenin proposed the
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THE NATURE OF THE OPPOSITION BLOC 21
signing of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk. "A breathing space
for the revolution."
Trotsky was far more "revolutionary." • Peace! A breath<«
ing space! Not for him! He said, "No peace but a revolu*
tionary war."
If we had had that revolutionary war Trotsky might have
died bravely on the battlefield and other revolutionaries would
have died alongside of him on the battlefield, but what would
the working class have had today? The crushing of the
revolution and blackest reaction throughout . the world!
SOME AMERICAN EXAMPLES
This question of being able to see through revolutionary
phrases to their objective content is of such importance that it
is worth digressing for a moment to take examples from the
history of the American revolutionary movement.
For example, there was the demand raised by the ultra-
leftists in the Communist Party: "The Party must not agitate
for immediate demands, only for the overthrow of capital-
ism-" Surely this sounds very revolutionary. But what does
it mean in practice? It means the abandoning of the daily
struggle, the giving up of the difficult tasks of getting the
masses into action, the omission of the step-by-step process
which leads to a revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of
capitalism. Hence in practice "No immediate demands, noth-
ing but revolution" meant no revolution at all.
THE FARMER
Lore's view on the farmers was: This is a workers*^
party and we want a working class revolution. We want no
farmer-labor alliance and no workers and farmers govern-
ment. This attitude is the American form of the Trotsky-
ite position on the peasantry. In practice, it means fore-going
the possibility of an alliance between the farmers and the
workers. It means weakening the forces that struggle against
capitalism. It means abandoning the farmers to the leader-
ship of capitalism and thus strengthening the enemy forces. y
Yet it sounds ultra-proletarian and ultra-revolutionary.
Lore showed essentially \he same attitude on the question
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22 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
of alliance with colonial struggles against imperialism. Once
mo^e a revolutionary phrase was used to cloak this position.
"Not colonial nationalist revolutions — ^we want the world
DToletarian revolution." Objectively, this means no struggle
Against imperialism, no alliance between the victims of Wall
S^eet in the colonies and its victims here.
DUAL UNIONISM
Another fine-sounding slogan which our Party had to re-
ject was: "Out of the reactionary unions. Build revolution-
ary unions.'* What class conscious worker does not prefer
revolutionary unions to reactionary unions? But the revolu-
tionary movement cannot skip over the task of winning the
organized masses in the reactionary unions. The slogan which
mounded so revolutionary meant separating ourselves from the
masses of the organized workers and abandoning them to the
mercy of the reactionary bureaucracy.
THE LABOR PARTY
When the Communist Party proposed to work for the
building of a labor party, the slogan was raised: "No labor
party, but a Communist Party." Here again, it sounded more
revolutionary to refuse to build a labor party and to demand
that all building be done on the revolutionary Workers (Com-
munist) Party. Yet the building of a labor party is funda-
mental in the present period. To neglect it is to neglect the
chief means of separating the overwhelming mass of the
backward workers from the capitalist parties which still dom-
inate them. The political separation of the workers from the
capitalists through the formation of a mass labor party is the
first step in moving the American proletariat to revolutionary
struggle against capitalism on a class scale.
These are only a few examples of such slogans in the
American Party. Such errors occur from time to time and
therefore one of the most important lessons for American
workers to learn from a study of the controversy in the C. P.
S. U. is that of analyzing slogans so as to see their objective
political meaning and not be blinded by "left" phraseology.
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CHAPTER IV
THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE OPPOSITION
Politics is a question of class relationships. The basic re-
quirement for revolutionary leadership is the ability correctly
to analyze the class forces in a given country and in the
v^^orld at a given moment. He who fails to analyze correctly
the relation of class forces cannot lead the working class.
The political theory of Trotsky which is the political theory
of the opposition has failed basically to anal3^e the relation of
class forces i« the Soviet Union, as it failed to analyze class
forces in old Czarist Russia as well. He fails to xinderstandi ^
the role of the peasantry and the relation between peasant andl '
worker.
Important in every country of the world, the question of
the relationship between worker and peasant is even more
important in the Soviet Union than in industrially more ad-
vanjed countries.
XVithin the Soviet Union, the workers are greatly outnum-
bered by the peasants. Outside the Soviet Union, there is a
ring of hostile capitalist states, armed to the teeth and plotting
the destruction of the workers' government. The workers
of the Soviet Union have made their revolution with the aid
fSi the peasants. They cannot resist attack without the sup-
fport of the peasants. They could not maintain their rule if
\b^t support were changed into hostility. The problem of
maintaining working class rule and building socialism in the
Soviet Union is in the first place the problem of maintaining
me alliance between peasants an J workers. Not only must the
ahiance be maintained, but it must be continually strengthened
ind the peasantry must be led through that alliance to thei
Building of socialism.
A policy which tends to break that alliance may sound
ultra-proletarian and ultra-revolutionary, but any policy which
threatens to break that alliance is a policy threatening the very
existence of the revolution.
[23]
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24 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
THE THEORY OF PERMANENT REVOLUTION
In the preceding chapter, we analyzed in part Trotsky's
theory of "permanent revolution" and his slogans of the 1905
period, which left the peasantry out. In 1922, in writing a
new introduction to his book entitled 1905, he showed that
'he had not yet abandoned these theories, but rather thought
that history had confirmed them. He writes:
"It was just in the period between the 22nd of January
and the October strike (this refers to events in the year 1905
— B. D. W.) that the views of the present writer were formed
on the character of the revolutionary development of Russia
. . . the idea that the Russian revolution, confronted by im-
I mediate bourgeois aims, cannot be content with gaining these.
The revolution cannot solve its first bourgeois tasks by any
other means than by the seizure of power by the proletariat.
"But after it has seized power, the proletariat cannot confine
itself to the bourgeois frame-work of the revolution. . . .
"This means for the proletariat hostile encounters with
every group of the bourgeoisie which has supported the pro-
letariat at the beginning of the revolutionary struggle, not
only with these, but vjith the broad masses of the feasantry
as welly whose support has enabled them to get and maintain
power." (emphasis mine — B.D.W.)
*rhis theory, that the working class must use its
power not only against the bourgeoisie and the feudal aristoc-
racy but against "the broad masses of the peasantry as well"
is the very heart of the political theory of Trotskyism. It
is because he does not perceive the revolutionary role of the
peasantry, it is because he does not see in the peasantry an
ally for the working class, that he did not believe in the power
of the Russian masses to make a revolution, to maintain a
^workers' government, and to build socialism.
THE BUILDING OF SOCIALISM
' y/hxii, from this followed a second theory — ^the theory that
'^e revolution can only be successful and endure if it spreads
immediately to other coimtries. "If this does not happen,"
says Trotsky, "it will be hopeless to believe — as is evident
from the experience of history and theoretical consideration
that the revolution in Russia, for example, could remain iso-
lated in a capitalist world."
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THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE OPPQSITIOJ
For this reason also, Trotsky says: "The contradictions
the position of a workers' government in a backward count
with an overwhelming preponderance of peasant population
can find their solution only on an international scale, in the
arena of the world revolution."
It is for this reason that the stabilization of European capi-
talism arouses in him such pessimism and despair. It is for
this reason that the opposition made so many proposals whidi
were calculated to break the alliance between workers ana
peasants, and it is because he believes that the peasantry i»
going to be provoked by the policy of the workers state to]
rise in armed conflict against it that Trotsky comes to the con-
clusion that the power of the working class can only be main-j
tained if they get the direct state aid of the victorious prole
tariat of other countries. On this he wrote: "Without
direct state support of the European proletariat, the R\]
working class cannot retain power and cannot turn theiiy
porary rule into a permanent socialist dictatorship."
LENIN AND TROTSKY ON CLASS FORCES
Let us compare this iundamental theory of Trotsky, strip-
ped of its revolutionary phraseology, with Lenin's view of
class forces.
Lenin regards the working class as the leader of all ex-
ploited and toiling masses including especially the peasantry.
Trotsky regards the working class as the enemy, exploiter
and destroyer of the peasantry.
/ For Lenin the dictatorship is carried on by the proletariat
leading the peasantry. f <«\fc^ Jic^J^^ WH^
For Trotsky the dictatorship is carried on by the working
class against the peasantry.
According to Lenin, the conquest of power and control of
the state apparatus by the working class strengthens the alliance
of worker and peasant. It enables the working class "to sat-
isfy by revolutionary means the needs of the peasants."
According to Trotsky the conquest of power by the work
ing class puts an end to the possibility of alliance betwe
worker and peasant, makes the working class governmenr the
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26 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
-exploiter of the peasants, and leads to an armed clash of the
broad masses of the peasants with the workers' state. As the
peasants are in a majpfity^ thp ynrlrers state cannot endure,
unless there arc successful revolutions fh other countries and
the victorious worker's ^pverxuneAls give "state aid" to the
govemmeht of the Soviet Union. State aid means funds» in-
dustrial products, munitions and s e ddiers to crush the antici-
^pated peasant risings.
Under such circumstances the fact that the Soviet Union
^/has endured as long as it has is, according to Trotsky, "a
/ miracle." Stabilization and the delay of the revolution in the
j West creates a situation that gives little hope. The Soviet
I Union may continue to exist, but there can be no talk of
\ building socialism "The genuine rise of socialist economy in
\ Russia will be possible only after the victory of the proletariat
to the most important countries of Europe." This is Trotsky's
/ most optimistic verdict. And his less optimistic one is that the
J Soviet Government will degenerate or be overwhelmed by
\ peasant revolts or foreign attack. "Without the direct state
\ support of the European proletariat, the Russian working class
! cannot retain power and cannot turn their temporary rule into
\a permanent socialist dictatorship."
As to the possibility of "building socialism in a single coun-
try" namely in the Soviet Union, Lenin has this to say:
'^Unevenness of economic and political development is an
absolute law of capitalism. From this it follows that the vic-
tory of socialism is at first possible in a few capitalist countries
and even in a single one. The victorious proletariat of that
country having expropriated the capitalists and having organ-
ized socialist production would rise against the rest of the
capitalist world, rally to itself the oppressed classes of other
countries, raise rebellion in these countries against the capital-
, ists, and, in the event of necessity come out with armed force
against the exploiting classes and their States." ('* Against the
Stream.")
After the revolution he wrote:
"The reason why the bourgeoisie of the whole world is fu-
rious and raving against Bolshevism and is organizing military
campaigns, conspiracies, etc., against the Bolsheviks is that it
understands perfectly well that our success in the work of rn-
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THE POLITICAL THEORY OF THE OPPOSITION; 27
constructing social economy is assured, unless we are crushed ' -
by military force, and to crush us in this manner they will
not succeed."
In a speech after the introduction of the New Economic
Policy (NEP) Lenin declared:
"Let me conclude by expressing the conviction that however
difficult this task may be ... all of us together, if not in a
day, at least in several years, will fulfill the task at all costs
and NEP Russia will become socialist Russia." (Speech to the
Moscow Soviet).
Finally I quote from one of his last articles written shortly
before his death:
/"As a matter of fact, with the political power in the hands
Jbi the proletariat, the alliance of this proletariat with many
/millions of petty and small peasants, with the leadership of
/ this peasantry secure in the hands of the proletariat — ^is this
\ not all that we require in order that cooperation, that coopera-
) tion alone, which we formerly scorned as mere huckstering and
\vhich to a certain degree we have a right to scorn as such
as now under the NEP, is this not all that is necessary for the
construction of complete socialist society? This is not yet
socialist society completely constructed, but it is all that is
necessary and is sufficient for this construction." (Article on
Cooperation.)
Of course the Communist Party knows that the Soviet
Union will not be safe from attack by foreign imperialism
until after the victory of the working class in various coim-
tries. It does not underestimate this danger and prepares
earnestly against it.
But this must not be confused with the question: Can the
worker-peasant alliance be maintained? Will it be over*
thrown from within? Has it enough revolutionary energy^
to build socialism without aid of other govemm^ents, out of
its own resources, on the basis of its own class forces? The
answer of Lenin, the answer of the Party he built, is: "Yes,*'
And the progress of the first ten years proves that that answer
is correct.
STATE AID VERSUS AID
<Ior does the party overestimate, as Trotsky does, the ques-
ifon of the "state aid" of victorious revolutions as the only
iource of aid. The Soviet Union is being and has been aided
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28 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
by the workers of the world before they have conquered state
power in other countries. It was aided by the mutiny of the
V French fleet in the Black Sea, by the revolt of the German
I troopS) by the mutiny of the American troops in Archangel.
I Every army that has ever been sent against it has mutinied !
It has been aided by the formation of Committees of Ac-
tion by the British workers in 1920 and 21, when Britain
threatened to attack the Soviet Union. It was aided by the
longshoreman's strike on the Pacific Coast which prevented
the shipment of American ammunition to Vladivostok. It
was aided by the workers of the world with relief during the
famine. It is aided by the struggles of the workers of every
country of the world, by the struggles of the oppressed col-
onial peoples, by every blow which weakens the forces of
capitalism and imperialism. It is aided by the conflicts inside
the imperialist forces. It is aided by its great and ever-
growing popularity among the toiling masses of the world.
And it is aided above all by the growth of the Communist
Parties and the Communist International, organizer and
leader of the world revolutionary struggle.
When the Soviet Union is attacked it will be aided by
strikes in the countries attacking it. The arniies sent against
it will consist of workers. Such armies will be "demoral-
ized." There will be mutinies, desertions to the Red Army,
revolts. The workers of the world will know how to defend
the Soviet Union.
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CHAPTER V.
THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF THE OPPOSITION
Politics is concentrated economics. The economic theory
of the opposition and their "practical** economic proposals
follow from their political theory, from their estimate of
•class relationships.
The central economic problem of the Soviet Union is the
problem of Socialist accumulation — where to get the funds
to industrialize the Soviet Union and build up socialism.
Preobraschensky, who is the official "economist" of the
opposition, as Trotsky is its political leader, has written a
ivork entitled "The Fundamental Laws of Socialist Accumu-
lation" to answer that question.
The basis of his economic theory is that the proletarian
state is the exploiter of the peasantry and that the funds for
the building of industry should be gotten from the exploita-
tion of the peasantry by industry and by the state. H ^ writ es:
"The more backward economically, petty-bourgeois and |
agrarian a country is when it goes over to a socialist organ- i
ization of production, the more necessary it will be for the A
socialist accumulation of such a country to draw support from '"V ^'
the exfloitation of pre-spcialist. forms." (Emphasis mine.) |
By "exploitation of pre-socialist forms" Preobrashensky
means especially the peasantry. In the same work he com-
pares the peasant region of Russia to the colonies of an im-
perialist country!
PRICE POLICY OF THE OPPOSITION
^ One of the most vicious features of capitalism from the
standpoint of agriculture is "the scissors"; the gap between
industrial prices and farm prices whereby the farming popu-
lation has to sell its products cheaply and buy industrial prod-
ucts at a greater price rate. This is a form of exploitation
of the farmer by the owners of industry. Preobrashensky
proposes to continue this under working-class control of in-
dustry and even to increase the gap. He advocates "a price
policy which consciously or unconsciously is based upon the
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30 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
exploitation of every description of private economics."
"It is not the task of the socialist state to deprive the petty-
bourgeois producers (again the peasants are meant — ^B. D. W.)
of less than capitalism has deprived them of» but to take
away more of the greater income secured to them by
the rationalization of the whole economics of the country,
including small production."
He advocates not only higher prices for industrial products
as a means of exploiting the peasantry, but higher taxes, direct
; use of the state power (which would mean a return to the
j forced levies of war communism) and even withdrawal of
\ government funds from trade.
ABANDONING TRADE TO THE NEPMAN
This last proposal is typical of the "get-rich-quick" schemes
for industrialization and socialist accumulation proposed hy
the Opposition. Viewed superficially, it seems to promise to
speed up the building of socialism. Why should the workers^
state invest any of its funds in cooperatives and trading or-
ganizations for buying and selling the peasants' products when
every kopek is needed for industry? "It is disadvantageous
for state economics to apply a part of the capital of which its
own production is in need for the purposes of trade which is
philanthropic as far as its proceeds are concerned."
It seems to promise speedy socialism, but in reality it would
accomplish just the opposite, an enormous step backward to-
wards capitalism.
Why? Because to take state funds out of buying and sell-
ing is to put trade back into the hands of private capital, into
the hands of the Kulak and Nepman. It means to give up
the job of squeezing the Nepman out of trade in which so
I much progress has been made that now 64.5 percent of the
I retail trade and 91 percent of the wholesale trade is in the
ji hands of the cooperatives or the state. It means to give up
I the successes of the last few years in isolating the kulak and
7 to abandon the countryside to his tender mercies. It means
to give a tremendous stimulus to the economic and then the
political power of the capitalist elements in Soviet economy
and to give up the task of trying to lead the peasants towards
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THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF THE OPPOSITION 31
socialism. That it is a "short-cut" there is no doubt, but a
^^short-cut" not to socialism but back to capitalism.
THE QUESTION OF MONOPOLY
Monopoly represents a parasitic form of capitalism. It is
superior to earlier competitive capitalism in the sense that it
represents large-scale industry, but is greatly inferior to earlier
capitalism in the sense that the elimination of competition
makes it no longer necessary to be "progressive," to produce
better and cheaper goods. Monopolist capitalism makes its
profits, not by producing better and cheaper goods and con-
tinually improving its methods of production but by cornering
the market and continually extending the monopoly. This
enables it to fix prices artificially and to force the taking of
goods at a given price. Lenin emphasized the necessity of
taking from capitalism (a) the progressive tendency of com-
petitive capitalism in producing better and cheaper goods; (b)
the large-scale production system of monopoly. He also
emphasized the necessity of rejecting (a) the anarchy of the
competitive system, and (b) the degenerating parasitic tenden-
cies of monopoly, which takes advantage of its privileged
monopoly position instead of improving production.
Preobrashensky in his theory proposes to borrow from mono-
poly precisely its parasitic character and raise it to a system
of exploitation of the peasantry by the proletariat. He says:
'S . . the state economics of the proletriat originates his-
torically on the foundation of monopolist capitalism. The
latter, however, leads to the creation of monopolist prices
for the products of monopolist industry in the home markets,
gains a surplus profit in consequence of the exploitation of
the small producers, and thus prepares the ground for the
price policy of the period of original socialist accumulation.
Thus the concentration of the whole of the big industries of
the country in the hands of a single trust, that is, in the hands
of the workers' state, increases to an extraordinary extent
the possibility of trying out such a price policy on the basis
of monopoly, a price policy simply signifying another form
of taxation of private production."
Lenin was always worried about the danger of monopolist
degeneration, of bureaucratic management of state industry.
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52 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
If Preobrashensky*s theories were followed, then the state
industries would not have to improve continually their pro-
ducing methods and continually lessen the cost of production,,
but would artificially fix prices as high as the traffic would
bear. This would mean monopolistic and bureaucratic de-
generation of state industry and would make it more an in-
strument of exploitation of the backward industrial forms
(the peasantry) than the trusts are under capitalism itself.
Lenin proposed to fight this tendency to monopolistic and
bureaucratic degeneration by (1) the pressure of the broad
masses; (2) the constant lowering of prices and the cost of
production; (3) competition with the NEP, sellfng cheaper
I and better goods; (4) the winning of the peasantry through
;!| these lower prices and superior quality of goods to appreciate
i} the superiority of the state industry over private industry; (5)
the development of the cooperatives.
Lenin aimed at increasing the market by increasing the
buying power of the peasantry, raising the backward forms of
industry to the level of the large-scale industries of the cities*
But Preobrashensky aims not at the development of the coun-
tryside and the abolition of classes by the raising of the peas-
antry and fusing of it with the proletariat, but the main-
tenance of the dictatorship and its degeneration in such form
that the proletariat becomes a real exploiting class and the
peasantry the exploited. Thus under the guise of socialist
accumulation he is objectively proposing the adoption of the
worst forms of the imperialist monopolist character of capi-
talism.
The economic theories of Preobrashensky follow logically
; from the political theories of T rotsk y as to the conflicts of
interests between worker and peasant and the necessity of the
workers so exploiting the peasant as to arouse his hostility.
From this politfcs and this economics, follow all of the prac-
tical proposals of the opposition on price policy, on taxation
policy, on trade policy, etc., discussed in the next chapter.
Before taking up those "practical" proposals, let us briefly
contrast the economic theory of the opposition with that of
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THE ECONOMIC THEORY OF THE OPPOSITION 33
Leninism, which underlies the taxation, price and rural econ-
omy policy of the Party: ^ ^
Lenin: The more backward a country, the more necessarjt
an alliance between workers and peasants.
Preobrashensky : The more backward a country, the more
necessary the exploitation of the peasants by the workers.
Lenin: Proletarian industry must strive to prove to the
peasant its superiority to capitalist industry by selling cheaper
and better, by lessening the gap between industrial and agri-
cultural prices.
Preobrashensky: Proletarian industry must take not less
but more than capitalist industry, must use its monopoly posii
tion to widen the price gap. ^
Lenin: We must invest larger and larger sums in trade
and cooperatives, crowd out the Kulak and Nepman and lead
the peasant toward socialism.
Preobrashensky: Take all funds out of cooperatives and
trade. Such use of funds is philanthropy. ^
Lenin: An increase in the buying power of the peasaius
is a basic necessity to the development of Soviet industry, sincA
the peasants constitute the chief market of Soviet industry. \
Through cooperation, electrification, the raising of the level
of the peasantry and the demonstration by performance of the
superiority of socialist industry, the peasant will be led from
increasing identity of interests td complete fusion with the
proletariat in the socialist order.
Preobrashensky: The small producer is a colony, an object)
of exploitation. In the long run he will be exploited out of|
existence and thus socialism will come about.
Lenin: No colonial robbery or exploitation of economically!
backward nationalities inside or outside the Soviet Unioni
From alliance to complete fusion and disappearance of classes]
Preobrashensky: Proletriat is exploiting class; peasants ex<-
ploited class, the colony.
It is easy to see that the economic theory of the opposition
leads where the political theory leads — ^to exploitation of
the peasants, to a rupture of the alliance of workers and
peasants, to "armed clashes," to destruction of the Soviet power.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE PRACTICAL PROPOSALS OF THE
OPPOSITION
It is obviously impossible to take up all of the proposals of
the opposition in so limited a pamphlet as the present one.
It is even difficult to select typical ones for two reasons:
1. The opposition is so heterogeneous, made up of such
contradictory elements, that on some matters it has nearly as
many contradictory proposals as spokesmen.
2. The opposition often permits one of its spokesmen to
put forth a proposal as a feeler. When it is analyzed and
annihilated, it is withdrawn or "forgotten," or the very op-
posite proposed in order to cover up the retreat.
3. The more the opposition finds itself discredited and re-
jected by the entire party, the more desperate it has become,
finally degenerating into a purely destructive opposition that
criticizes everything, opposes everything, seeks to capitalize
every defeat and misfortune that the -working class sustains.
By opposing everything that the party proposes, it desperately
hopes to catch the party in some mistake and how can the party
help but make errors sometimes? It is not afraid to injure
its prestige by opposing correct proposals because it has no
prestige left to injure.
Still we can select a few type proposals of leading members
of the opposition and see how they follow from the economic
and political theories analyzed in the two preceding chapters.
These proposals are, for the most part, the answers of the
Opposition to the questions planted in Chapter II — "Where
will the Soviet Union get the funds for the building of new
industries? How will the Soviet Union industrialize itself?
How will it build socialism? The answers of the Opposition
to these questions are so diverse and contradictory that we will
in each case note the author of any particular proposition.
"agrarianization^*
There are the arguments and proposals of Shanin and Sok-
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THE PRACTICAL PROPOSALS OF THE OPPOSITION 35
olnikov to the effect that the Soviet Union should concentrate
on the development of agriculture, as this is easy, and export
agricultural products and import machinery and manufactured
goods. This would in practice keep the Soviet Union an
agrarian country and would lead to a linking of Soviet agri-
culture not with Soviet industry but with European capitalist
industry.
Thus (to give only a brief quotation) Sokolnikov writes:
"The key to the acceleration of the process of raising- the
economy of the Union lies in the rapid rise of agriculture
.... as agriculture develops an increasing quantity of prod-
uce will be obtained for disposal on the foreign market which
can be utilized for the purpose of supplying what is required
for raising the whole of economy. . . The export of agri-
cultural products may be increased and such a quantity of
grain and other produce may be placed on the world market
as may, in the course of a few years, bring about a great
world economic revolution."
And Shanin writes:
"Agriculture requires an incomparably less amount of in-
vested capital per unit of production. Hence, in view of the
slow process of accumulation of capital, our economic revival
in the near future will proceed principally in the direction
of the revival of agriculture. , . It is quite erroneous to
assume that our industry, in the near future, can develop at
the same rate as agriculture. As a matter of fact, this prob-
lem is insoluble J at all events, it is insoluble unless large
quantities of capital are imported or unless the development
of agriculture is forcibly reurded. . . .
"Arguing from the view that our agriculture requires less
capital than industry, preference should be given to agricul-
ture. The development of agriculture to the full extent that
the world market can absorb, should be the principal aim."
Thus the first answer of the opposition as to how the Soviet
Union can be industrialized is: "It can't be industrialized.
Develop agriculture. Make it more agrarian." This would
lead to Russia's becoming a colonial agrarian country under
the domination of foreign industry and imperialism. It
would lead to a Russian Dawes plan and the return of capi-
talism. The difficulties of industrialization are met by a pro-
posal to give up the job.
Yet the Soviet Union is making progress towards indus-
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36 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
trialization and while during the first years agriculture re-
covered fastest, industry is now developing faster and has
passed agriculture and is leading and dominating it economic-
ally. The general line of the party is to convert the country
from an agrarian to an industrial one, capable of producing
by its own efforts all the equipment it requires.
SUPER-INDUSTRIALIZATION
After their plans for agrarianization were completely dis-
credited and refuted, the opposition, through other spokes-
men, began to advocate "Super-industrialization" schemes;
get-rich-quick schemes for industrializing overnight by ex-
cessive taxes on the peasantry (Ossovsky, Preobrashensky), by
forced seizure of peasant products (Piatakov), by raising
wholesale prices of industrial products sold to the peasants by
thirty percent (Piatakov, Preobrashensky, Repshe). All of
these schemes would le?id to the reintroduction of war com-
munism, to the lowering of the purchasing power of the peas-
ant, which is the principal market for Soviet industry, jto the
domination of the capitalist elements in trade (Nepmen and
Kulaks), to the breaking of the worker-peasant alliance and
to the return of capitalism by the back door as the agrarian-
ization schemes of Shanin and Sokolnikov would bring it in
by the front door.
BEND THE KNEE TO FOREIGN CAPITAL
A third set of proposals of the opposition identified with
the names of Medvediev and Schliapnikov declares that small
peasant economy must be exterminated. At the same time,
they declare that industry cannot be built by its own accumu-
lation and savings, nor by means of taxation but only by the
aid of foreign capital. How to get this?
"We demand," they answer, "that the government shall
make more strenuous efforts to obtain these funds by means
of foreign and internal state loans and by granting concessions
involving greater losses and material sacrifices than those the
government has hitherto been prepared to make in order to
obtain these credits ... to make greater material sacrifices to
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THE PRACTICAL. PROPOSALS OF THE OPPOSITION 37
international capital which is prepared to undertake the revival
of our ruined ( ? ) industries. . ."
"Down on your knees to international capital" is the des-
perate proposal of Medvediev and Schliapnikov! Here again
capitalism and imperialism are led back in by the front door.
As one after another their proposals were rejected and re-
futed, the opposition became more and more reckless, more
and more careless of their reputation, and more and more
desperate in their disregard for the realities and possibilities
pf the situation or their own consistency. They swung from
the advocacy of an increase of taxes on the peasantry to the
advocacy of a disastrous cut. (The taxes on the peasantry
5¥ith the exception of the Kulak are being steadily and slowly
lowered according to a consistent plan — see figures below.)
From an advocacy of a 30 percent rise in prices which was
to bring an extra billion rubles for industrialization overnight,
they swung to an attack upon the slowness with which the
government is succeeding in lowering prices ! From exagger-
ating the difficulties of . industrialization to denying their ex-
istence and finding easy overnight solutions and then fron^
easy overnight solutions to fresh pessimism and gloomy pro^
phecy and. declaration that Soviet economy was moving back-
ward, not forward at all. Finally, they ceased making "con-
structive proposals" and. contented themselves with a constant
barrage of criticism of everything proposed and everything
accomplished and with an attempt to speculate with every mis-
fortune, every difficulty and every obstacle in the slow and
difficult path of building socialism in the Soviet Union.
Gradually, they appealed less and less to the party members
who had so overwhelmingly repudiated them, and began
appealing more and more to the most backward strata of the
working class and the peasantry and to other non-communist
and non-proletarian sections of the population.
One or two examples of such appeals are all we have room
for here, but they will suffice.
TIfE QUESTION OF WAGE INCREASES
The wages of workers in the Soviet Union have gone up
steadily since their lowest point in 1921, so that thev are now
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38 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
above pre-war and still rising (this without counting the
shorter workday and the many forms of social remuneration
such as cultural opportunities, unemployment, sickness, acci-
dent and old age insurance, vacations with pay, etc.). Still,
it must be remembered that the workers of the Soviet Union
are deliberately refraining from consuming all they produce
in order that some of their product may be used to build up
industry and develop a socialist order of society. In other
words, the workers of the Soviet Union are in part sacrificing
their immediate interests of today for the sake of the future,
for the building of socialism.
The opposition, as it grew more desperate, suddenly at-
tacked this fundamental source of socialist accumulation, and
attempted to rally the more backward workers, less willing to
sacrifice the present for the future, by the demagogic and im-
possible demand of an increase of 30 percent to 40 percent
in wages. But the workers were class-conscious enough in-
dignantly to reject such demagogy.
Here is a sample of the easy way in which Zinoviev con-
jured a billion rubles out of his sleeve. He went to the shop
nucleus in the Aviation factory Aviopribor and urged that the
members vote for him and his platform. He said in part:
'^Reduce expenditures by half a billion at the expense of the
bureaucracy. Take the Nepman by the scruff of the neck
and we get another half a billion. We take this billion and
divide it between industry and wages. This in two words is
our economic program.' ..."
Simple, isn't it? Another billion was promised by the
scheme of raising wholesale prices 30 percent (proposal of
Maizlin, Piatakov, Preobrashensky, etc.).
Rykov described the scene as follows:
'^Comrade Zinoviev comes to a meeting of a Party nudeos
and planks down a billion rubles on the table, and Maizlin
holds another billion in reserve. . . . Our supporters could not
make an ofFer nearly as high as that. However, in spite of
this handicap, this 'two billion' card was beaten by the rank
and file members of the party in every nucleus. The rank and
file members of the party proved to be more educated on
economic questions than the leaders of the opposition."
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THE PRACTICAL PROPOSALS OF THE OPPOSITION 39
The Aviopribor nucleus indignantly rejected the platform
and Its advocate.
In a similar demagogic manner, they swung suddenly from
the proposal to industrialize by high taxation on all forms of
peasant economy to a demand for a 25 percent increase in
the number of peasants exempted entirely from taxation. Here
again the policy of the party has been slowly and steadily, as
conditions permit, to increase the number of poor peasants
exempt from taxation. The number of poor peasants exempt
altogether from taxation rose from 15 percent in 1925 to 25
percent in 1926. A further exemption of ten percent during
the current year means that practically all of the poor peas-
antry is exempted. The tax on the middle and upper layers
of the peasantry gets progressively higher so that on an in-
come of 100 rubles per head the tax is 25 percent.
THE QUESTION OF THE KULAK
On the question of how to combat the Kulak, the opposi-
tion has used its characteristic demagogy and made character-
istic errors which, had they been accepted, would have led to
disaster. The Kulak or rich peasant represents from three to
four percent of the total peasant population. The government
taxes him heavily (an income of 100 rubles a month, pa)rs
about 400 rubles a year or four months' income in taxes).
Also, the Party policy is to restrict his political and economic
rights, to lessen his power in the village and above all to
isolate him so that the poor and middle peasant do not follow
the Kulak but oppose him and follow the proletariat. The
opposition raises a demagogic cry about the Kulak, proposes
taxes greater than his income, proposes confiscation (which
would mean a return to war communism) and even proposed
at one time the slogan: "Let loose the class war in the village.'*
At the same time, its concrete proposals have been: with-
drawal of state funds from the cooperatives, which would
have given the Kulak complete control of the village; with-
drawal of state funds from trade, which would have put the
village under the domination of Kulak and N^pman; exces-
sive taxation of all forms of peasant economy, which would
have consolidated the village against the working class; high
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40 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
prices for industrial products, which would have had the same
eifect; and neglect of or pressure against the middle peasants^
which would have driven them into the hands of the Kulaks.
When the party, at the Fourteenth Congress, began to lay
systematic plans for the winning away of the middle peasants
from the Kulaks, whom they were then following, and pro-
posed to ally the middle peasants with the poor peasants and
workers by a gentler policy toward the middle peasant, the
opposition clamored that this was yielding to the Kulak. The
middle peasants make up the overwhelming mass of the peas-
ants. They are increasing more rapidly than either poor or
rich peasant. The Kulak increases with extreme slowness by
the enriching of a few of the middle peasants.
The poor peasants are being aided to develop toward middle
peasantry, or in some cases are proletarianized. The Kulaks
are being reduced in many cases to the condition of middle
peasants. Thus the middle peasant is the key to the rural
situation. But the opposition opposed the measures designed
to separate them from the Kulak and win their alliance with
the poor peasants and the proletariat. They declared that
the middle peasants were destined to break up into Kulak and
poor peasantry. (This was the direction of development of
the middle peasants under capitalism, but the reverse has
proved true under the rule of the workers,)
The proof of the correctness of the Party's policy adopted
is now clear to every one because the middle peasants, since
the Fourteenth Congress, have stopped following the Kulak
and the Kulak is now completely isolated, while the middle
peasant is in firm alliance with the poor peasant and worker*
The danger from the Kulak is not at an end but it is con-
siderably lessened. But the way of the (^position would have
led to the breaking of the worker-peasant bloc, the assump-
tion of leadership in the village by the Kulakj or, in the case
of some of their contradictory prq)osals, a step backward to
the days of war communism and civil war in the village and
such a weakening of the Soviet Union as would have made
Trotsky's doleful ^eories as to the impossibility of enduring
without State Aid of other lands, a reality*
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CHAPTER VII.
THE OPPOSITION AND THE PARTY
The preceding chapters show the Opposition abandoning,
one by one, all of the basic Leninist views on the question of
the revolution.
Denying the basically socialist character of proletarian in- ^
dustry, denying the possibility of the building of socialisnti in
the Soviet Union while surrounded by hostile capitalist coun-^
tries, describing the Nep not as a road to Socialism but as ^
"capitalism under the proletarian dictatorship,'' denying the
possibility of leading the peasants in a common alliance to-
wards socialism, proposing measures to break that alliance,^
exaggerating every difficulty and gloomily prophesying failure
and a return to capitalism at every moment — the opposition*^
had gradually developed a complete set of Menshevist views
on the basic questions of the proletarian revolution. In the
final stages of their development, they also adopted Menshev- v
ist views on discipline, the authority of conventions and lead-
ing bodies, the direction in which the party was developing
and the duties of its members toward it.
The organization of a communist party is based upon the
principle of discipline and detnpcratic centralism. Built for
struggle, it requires in the face of its enemies the unanimity
and solidarity of a fighting force. As a party of action it
cannot turn itself into a perpetual debating society. In pre-
convention periods, for two months, the most intensive dis-
cussion of all differences is permitted, but once the convention
has decided, then it is the duty of every member to carry out
the party program as decided by the convention. The con-
ventions derive their authority from the membership. They
elect the leading committees and officiials and between conven-
tions these committees are supreme.
The Opposition at first tried the regular party niethods of
trying to change the party program by an appeal to the niem-
hership in a convention period. They were overwhelmingly
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42 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
defeated. They then set themselves up as self-appointed
leaders regardless of the decisions of the convention and the
membership. They sought to prolong the discussion period
indefinitely and turn the party that has such gigantic tasks to
perform, into a debating society. They refused to recognize
the authority of the convention and the central committee
created by it. They refused to abide by the decisions of the
\,^ convention. They attacked the system of discipline and dem-
ocratic centralism. They set up a factional machinery of a
party within a party with its own leading committees, its own
discipline superior to the discipline of the party, its own secret
meetings and its own secretly printed and circulated literature.
They created a party within a party, threatening the funda-
mental unity of the Communist Party and driving towards
a split in the Communist party and the International.
The working class of the Soviet Union cannot have more
than one party to lead it in its struggles. If there are two
parties claiming to represent the proletariat, then the working
class is divided. Not only that, but inevitably, the enemy
classes will take advantage of the situation to support and
/ utilize the opposition party as their own instrument of struggle.
Whether they wanted to or not, this is what the opposition
soon found happening. And they played into the hands of
such developments by their attacks upon the party, by their
violation of the Soviet laws on licensed printing plants with
their secret underground presses, and above all by their ap-
pealing from the party to the non-party population. When
they went out on the streets and held or tried to hold street
demonstrations against the party in which every one was ap-
pealed to to join, they converted themselves into open enemies
of the party and the working class whose interests it represents.
These street demonstrations, had they been successful in rally-
ing great masses, would have passed over into an attack on the
Soviet Power. But the masses refused to follow them. Only
a handful of enemies of the Soviet regime and discontented
petty bourgeois intellectuals followed them, and the mass of
workers indignantly repudiated the demonstrators, tried to
attack them so that the state militia had to protect them.
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•I
THE OPPOSITION AND THE PARTY 43
The opposition had attacked and rejected the program of
the Party and returned to the viewpoint of the Mensheviks
on the questionr of class forces and the nature of the revolu-
tion. Now they attacked the party and returned to the Men-
shevik view on discipline and the Menshevik estimate of Dem-
ocratic centralism.
The Central Committee they denoimced as a ^bureaucratic
machine." The fact that the membership of this great fight-
ing party had rejected the opposition they said was a result of
the membership's having been "terrorized.** It is interesting
to note that the Mensheviks in 1903 raised the same cry
against Lenin and the Central Committee that the Opposition
now raises against the Central Committee under the leader-
ship of Stalin, Bukharin, etc. Lenin's answer is illuminating:
"It seems to me quite clear," wrote Lenin, "that these
cries about the notorious bureaucracy are simply intended to
conceal dissatisfaction with the personal composition of the
Central body. It is a fig leaf intended to conceal the viola-
tion of the solemn promise given at the Convention.
"You are a bureaucrat — because you were appointed by the
Congress against my will. You are a formalist because you |
abide by the formal decision of the Congress and ignore my i
objections. You are acting in a crudely mechanical manner j
because you abide by the 'mechanical* majority of the Party j
Convention and ignore my desires to be coopted (drafted I
into a leading position — ^B. D. W.). You are an autocrat \
because you do not wish to surrender power. . . i
"The fact that the minority adopts such methods in its
struggle merely proves once more their intelligenzia-like in- ;
stability. It desired to convince the Party that it had not been >
happy in its choice of central bodies .... by refusing to
work under the guidance of these hated central bodies. . .
The refusal to be subordinated to the leadership of the center
is tantamount to refusing to be in the Party, to destroying
the party."
THE QUESTION OF THERMIDOR
As the opposition became more and more vicious in its
attacks upon the party, it raised the peculiar slogan of "Ther-
midor." Beginning with doubt as to the possibility of build-
ing socialism, it ended up with convincing itself that the reyo-
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44^ THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION j
lotion was degenerating, that Russia was goin^ back towards
capitalism, that the counter-revolution had begun.
What did they mean by their cry of "Themidor"? Ther-^
midor was the name of a month in the newly adopted calen-
dar of the French revolution of 1789. In that month in the
third year of the revolution, counter-revolution began. It
was in the month of Thermidor that Robespierre was arrested
and executed, that the newly rich speculators crfeated by the
French revolution, the traflSkers in paper money and loans,
the profiteers on the food scarcity and the remnants of the
old regime, overthrew the revolutionary government and set
up a counter-revolutionary one.
The opposition had reached the end of its development!
With the cry of Thermidor, it was attacking the Party as the
representative of the counter-revolution! The Soviet Gov-
ernment, it was declaring, is no longer a workers' govern-
ment, but a government of Nepmen and Kulaks, suppressing
the revolution. From the slogan of Thermidor followed with
inevitable logic the duty of making a new revolution against
the "counter-revolutionary" government, of overthrowing the
Party through which the rule of Nepmen aiid Kulaks was
being introduced, of destroying that party, organizing against
it, demonstrating against it, fighting against it, of street dem-
onstrations which, if successful, would lead to uprisings. Re-
spect for party discipline, for Soviet law, these could not
stand in the way. Respect for them was respect for the laws
of counter-revolution and returning capitalism.
The opposition had completed its development. "Error
has its logic as well as truth." The logic of their errors had
led them step by step from rejection of the party program to
an attack upon it, from violation of its rules of organization
to violation of the laws of the Soviet government, from set-
ting themselves up above the party to setting themselves up
against the Party, from trying to rally the membership of
the party to their cause to trying to rally the non-party popu-
lation against the membership of their party.
THE VIOLATED PLEDGE
Expulsion was long overdue. A party is not a trade xmion.
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THE OPPOSITION AND THE PARTY 45
In a trade union all workers belong. , When we call a strike,
^we do not ask a worker in a shop whether he believes in thfe
or that program; he can be a Catholic or a Ku Klux Klanner,
a Republican or a Communist — ^we demand that he join the
strike because he works in the shop that is being called out.
But a political party is diiferent. A party is an organiza-
tion of the most politically conscious and developed section
of a class that it seeks to lead. Its members are united on the
basis of a definite program. Whoever rejects! that program
does not belong in the party. Consequently the Opposition
should have been expelled when they rejected the program
of the party and refused to abide by the convention decisions.
But with admirable patience the party waited, gave them
repeated opportunities to correct their errors, sought to con-r
vince as many as possible, win away every possible loyal party
member. When finally expulsion began, the Opposition on
October 16, 1926, pretended to sue for peace and made a
solemn written pledge to abandon their factionalism, dissolve
their secret dual party apparatus, cease their attacks upon the
Party's leading committees and act like disciplined Commim-
ists. When the Party accepted this pledge and refrained from
expelling them, they spread the rumor everywhere that the
Party was weak and the little handful of oppositionists re-
doubled their attacks and plottings. It was after this solemn
pledge that they set up the illegal printing plants and began
the effort at street demonstrations against the party. These
merited not only expulsion, but arrest. In spite of them*
selves they had become agents of counter-revolution.
It is no accident that they soon found themselves entangled
in a white guard conspiracy also in spite of themselves. The
counter-revolution supported their efforts to set up illegal
printing plants. The White Guard also needed imderground
printing plants. They used the opposition, in spite of any
desire it may have had. The Opposition hired some non-party
workers in the printing plant. The political police, investi-
gating white guard conspiracies, stumbled upon one of these
plants. Party members having connections with the opposi-
tion and non-party members having connections with the
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46 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
White Guard working side by side! Arrests followed and.
the expulsion of those directly responsible.
Even after their expulsion, when the discussion period for
the last convention occurred, the expelled members were per-
mitted to participate in the discussion and publish their views
in Pravda^ the official organ of the party. The voting re-
vealed that their following had narrowed down to one-half
of one percent of the voting membership of the party. Ninety-
nine and one-half percent against one-half of one percent.
I know no way of conveying the weakness of the opposition
to the reader more clearly than to tell him that one-half of
one percent is the amount of alcohol in near beer!
At the last convention, held in December, 1927, the op-
position refused to give up its non-communist platform. It
refused to abide by the decisions of the convention. All those
leaders who so refused, were expelled. The unprincipled
character of the opposition and its lack of imity then revealed
itself by the collapse of the opposition bloc. Zinoviev and
Kamenev and their followers broke with Trotsky and his
followers and issued a declaration accepting the decisions of
the party, recognizing their errors, renouncing their wrong
platform, pledging the dissolution of their factional apparatus,
and requesting readmission to the party. They were answered
that their case will be reviewed at the end of six months.
During that period they must prove the sincerity of their
declaration by their actions and by their work. If they loy-
ally carry out their declaration, at the end of six months they
will probably be readmitted as rank and file members.
If any of the expelled conspire to form a rival party, or
continue with secret printing plants and eiforts to organize
street demonstrations against the party and the government,
they will undoubtedly be arrested. If they keep out of pol-
itics and go to work they will be treated like any other non-
party worker. If they apply for readmission and show that
they sincerely follow the party, accept its program and its
discipline and its leadership, they will be readmitted. But
they will not soon be entrusted by the workers of the Com-
munist Party of the Soviet Union with responsible positions.
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CHAPTER Vm.
THE OPPOSITION AND THE COMMUNIST
INTERNATIONAL
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the leading
party in the Communist International. A struggle in any
section of the International is the vital concern of all sections.
A struggle in the Russian section is even more so.
The Communist International, both at the sessions of its
executive and at its Congress, repeatedly condemned Trotsky-
ism, condemned the opposition and unanimously supported the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Opposition no
more abided by the decisions of the Commimist International
than by those of its own party. On the contrary it extended
the field of its work to an international scale and while try-
ing to build up a rival party in the Soyiet Union tried to build
up a rival International. Had it gained more following in-
side and outside of the Soviet Union, this would have been
more evident.
But it was obvious enough. Not finding any support in
the various sections of the Communist International, it actu-
ally set up connections with expelled communists and rene-
gades from Communism. In Germany with Maslow, Ruth
Fisher, and Korsch, the ultra-leftist adventurers whom Zin-
oviev himself had so sharply condemned and aided to expel
while he was Chairman of the Communist International. In
France with the opportunist Souvarine, and the syndicalists
Rosmer and Monatte, expelled for opportunism. And so on
in every country. Again an unprincipled combination (Ultra-
left and ultra-right). And again anti-Communist because
both groups are engaged not in fighting capitalism but in pub-
lishing papers which attack their own former Communist
parties, the Communist International and the Soviet Gov-
ernment.
Just as they had attacked the policy of their party, the Op-
position attacked the policy of the Communist International
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48 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
in every field. Two of the outstanding ones will have to
suflSce, namely, the policy of the Communist International in
China and the policy of the Communist International in the
question of the Anglo-Russian unity committee. ,
THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN UNITY COMMITTEE
The formation of the Anglo-Russian Unity Committee
was one of the most important steps in the effort to form a
united front of the organized workers of the world for world
trade union unity. The Soviet Trade Unions, belonging to
the Red Trade Union International and the British Trade
Unions belonging to the Amsterdam International formed a
committee of delegates from each (who were, of course,
elected officials) for common action for the defense of the
interests of the workers, a joint offensive against imperialism,
capitalism and war and for world trade imion unity.
The leaders of the British trade unions were forced toi
agree to this by the sentiment of the masses of their organiza-l
tions. They were playing the game of swinging to the left
because the masses were swinging to the left and they wanted
to maintain their leadership and prevent the masses from going
too far or seeking more revolutionary leadership. The Rus-
sian unions entered into this united front to gain contact with
the rank and file of the British unions and to expose the fake
character of the leftism of these leaders.
The unity committee was a powerful agent for radicaliza-
tion of the British masses, for propaganda in every country
for world trade union unity, for mobilization against war and
imperialism, for defense of the Soviet Union. Zinoviev, of
course, supported its formation, and even expected too much of
it when he declared: "It is one of the first real guarantees of
peace, it is one of the surest guarantees against intervention, a
guarantee that in the course of time we shall make reformism
in Eurofe harmless.^^
When the leaders of the British trade unions were trying
to break the Unity Committee, when they were betraying the
general strike, when they were rejecting aid from the Russian
unions, when they were trying to conceal their connections
with the Russian unions, when it was most necessary for the
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OPPOSITION AND COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL 49
Russian unions to maintain contact with the British unions,
to criticize and expose the treachery of its leaders and to ex-
pose these leaders by forcing them to break off their relations
with the Russian unions under the fire of such criticism, the
Opposition suddenly proposed that the Russian unions should
take the initiative in breaking off the Anglo-Russian Unity
Committee. This was, of course, rejected and the Russian
"unions continued their criticism of the British leaders until the
latter were openly forced to make the break with the Anglo-
Russian Unity Committee and expose thsemselves still fur-
ther.
Even worse than the error of the opposition was its argu-
ments. If they were logically followed out, they led to an
abandonment of the united front tactics altogether; and even
implied to the British workers, abandonment of their unions
•and giving up the struggle to revolutionize them from within.
The phrases about "objecting to sitting down at the same
table with these reformist leaders" sound revolutionary but
are the opposite. We sit down at the same table with them,
not to flirt with them or feast with them, but as one of the
ways of reaching the masses that follow them, and as a means
■of making demands on them which will expose them when
rejected. We had no illusions about these leaders when the
Anglo-Russian Unity Committee was formed, but the masses
had. The leaders of the British general council entered under
pressure from their masses and tried to use the Committee
as a leftist coloring without doing anything* The Russian
Union leaders tried to expose these leaders, destroy the illu-
sions of the inasses following them, demanded that something
be done of value to the working class. At the time when all
this was to reach its climax came the stupid proposition of the
Opposition. This was Trotsky's old trick of substituting dram-
atic gestures and left phrases for diflScult and determined
struggle. Once more the opposition shows its tendency to sur-
render (of course, in the grand style) to the diflSculties of the
work.
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CHAPTER IX
THE QUESTION OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION
The opposition charged the Communist International and
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with every mis-
fortune, every reversal and every defeat sustained by the work-
ing class anywhere in the world. Zinoviev, in his speech
before the last plenum of the Central Executive Committee,
declared that Stalin was responsible for the breaking of rela-
tions between Great Britain and the Soviet Union, for the
straining of relations between France and the Soviet Union,
for the defeat of the Chinese revolution, and some sixteen of
seventeen other similar accusations, until his indignant hearers
yelled out: "You forgot the Crimean earthquake. You forgot
the Mississippi floods."
The Opposition's propaganda on China is of this character
— an attempt to make political capital out of the temporary
defeat of the Chinese revolution.
Yet the Opposition has failed to understand the Chinese
revolution, and as usual has made a series of proposals leftist
in sound, which would have been disastrous.
The basis of the tactics of the Communists in the Chinese
Revolution is the understanding that China is a country op-
pressed by foreign imperialism and that the revolution repre-
sents a developing movement which begins as a movement
against foreign imperialism and its supporters within China
arid necessarily, in the course of its development, deepens into
a struggle against feudalism, against militarism, and against
capitalism.
The opposition failed in the first place to understand the
relation of class forces in China, as they failed to xmderstand
the relation of class forces in the Soviet Union. They failed
to see the role of the peasant and the possibilities of the de-
velopment of the agrarian revolution in China. Thus Trot-
sky throught that the center of the revolution was the question
of tariflF autonomy and Radek declared that there was no f eu-
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THE QUESTION OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 51
dalism in China, which meant that no powerful agrarian anti-
feudal movement could develop.
The opposition failed to see the difference between a revo-
lution in an oppressed country and a revolution in an oppressor
or imperialist nation. For example, Radek made a similar
error in 1916, when he denounced the Irish revolution led by
Jim Connelly as a "putsch** under bourgeois leadership im-
worthy of proletarian support. His slogan was of course
ultra-leftist and ultra-proletarian. "We want no bourgeois
nationalist revolutions; we are for the world proletarian rev-
olution."
The opposition failed to see the possibilities of an alliance
during a certain period of the revolution with the national
bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie fighting against imperialism.
The tactics of the Communist International were to form
such an alliance by the entrance of the Communist Party into
the Kuo Min Tang while it maintained organizational inde-
pendence and the right of independent propaganda and critiV
cism of the acts of the Kuo Min Tang.
The problem was to get into this powerful organization,
which existed before the Communist Party was formed and
before the proletariat had developed as an independent force,
to gain contact with the awakening masses that were follow-
ing the Kuo Min Tang, to push that organization as far to
the left as possible, to deepen the revolution as rapidly as pos-
sible, to develop the forces of the working class and the peas-
antry as rapidly as possible, and to break with the bourgeoisie
and petty bourgeoisie who, in the early stages, were leading
the revolution, only when it was no longer possible to work^
with them. In other words, the correct tactics were to stay
in the Kuo Min Tang as long as it remained revolutionary in
its character, as long as it carried on a real fight, and as long
as it permitted freedom to the Communists to organize inside
and outside of that body.
If the Communists had failed to enter the powerful Kuo
Min Tang, when it was at the head of the great masses, or if
the Communists had left prematurely while the Kuo Min
Tang still enjoyed the confidence of the masses as the leader
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52 _ THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
in the struggle against imperialisniy they would have remained
a tiny sect, separated from the masses and from the struggle..
Yet the opposition proposed such a break with the Kuomintang:
j r at a time when the latter still enjoyed the confidence of the
Vma
/^Bf remaining in the Kuo Min Tang as long as possible, the-
jtommunist Party of China succeeded in building itself from
/a tiny group of a few thousand into a party of 50 or 60,QQp
( at the time of the attack upon it. It succeeded in arousing the*
i proletariat and the peasantry to independent action. It siic-
"^eded in exposing the bourggeoisie when they became terri-
fied by this independent action of the workers and peasants,
and went over into the camp of the reaction, so that when the
Chinese Party broke with the bourgeoisie and was sharply
attacked, it was no longer an attack against an isolated sect
but an attack against the leader of the workers and peasants^,
an attack upon the entire working class and peasant class.
True, the Chinese Communist Party made various mistakes,
in this difficult and complicated manoeuver, being an inex-
perienced party in a swiftly-moving situation and inevitably
absorbing many wavering elements in its rapid growth. But
the Communist International was quick to correct these errors
and on the whole the party has conducted itself well and ac-
complished tremendous results. The proof of it is that the
Party is now recognized by the toiling masses of workers and
peasants of China as their leader, and the bourgeois and mili-
tarist leaders of the now discredited Kuomintang as their ene-
mies and executioners, whereas when the Commimists first
entered the Kuo Min Tang, they had no mass following and
the workers and peasants just awakening to revolutionary
struggle, followed the still revolutionary bourgeoisie and the
Kuo Min Tang.
The opposition points out that the Party has now brokenr
with the Kuo Min Tang and says **I tdd you so/* Or "Didn^t
we tell you to do that long ago?** That is precisely the
trouble, however, with the pn^posals of the Opposition om
China. When they proposed a break with the KuoiKifntang^
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THE QUESTION OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 53
it would have been disastrous to the development of the Chi-y
nese revolution.
Similarly, the opposition proposed the premature raising of
the slogan: "Build Soyiets" at the same time that they proposed
withdrawal from the Kuo Min Tang, in other words, while
the masses were still following that party.
The revolution is now entering a higher stage, where the?
Communist Party leads and the workers and peasants no
longer follow the bourgeoisie but struggle as an independent
force. Now the slogan of "Build the Soviets" is being pro-*
perly raised and the masses understand it, the time is ripe for
it. The opposition again steps forward with an "I-told-you-
so,*' which reveals that they do not understand that a revolu-
tionary movement has stages, and that a slogan which is ripe
for one period is Wrong for another, and that revolutionary
slogans raised at the Wrong time may soimd revolutionary but
are against the interests of the revolution. This is another
important lesson that American workers can learn from a
study of the controversy in the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union.
As to the defeat of the Chinese revolution — ^the oppositionf
makes two errors in this connection. First, that a defeat neces^
sarily proves that the Communist leadership is at fault. We
cannot be guaranteed that every struggle we undertake will
end in victory. If we wait until we are 100% sure of victory
before struggling, there will be no victories and no struggles.
The defeat of the revolution of 1905 is a typical example.
It was Plechanoff, the Menshevik, who played the part of the
wiseacre after the defeat and said the workers should never
have taken up arms. But 1905 made possible the victory of
1917.
The second mistake of the opposition is to assume that the
revolution in China is decisively defeated. It has suflFered
several reverses, but continues to broaden and deepen, to swing
ever fresh masses of workers and peasants into action, and de-
spite reverses, to move onwards towards final victory.
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CHAPTER X
THE DEFENSE OF THE SOVIET UNION
From day to day, signs multiply that world imperialism is
planning an open attack upon the Soviet Union. Its very
existence arouses their hatred and their fear. It is a constant
inspiration to all the oppressed peoples of the world and to the
workers of every land. Its very existence heartens the work-
ers to new struggles. Its achievements in the building of so-
cialism are a continuous demonstration that the workers can
get on better without their bosses and a perpetual clarioa-call
to struggle against the capitalist system with its exploitation, its
misery, its unemployment and its wars. Therefore, the ex-
ploiters and oppressors are determined that the Soviet Union
must be destroyed.
The Soviet Union is devoting all its energies, on the one
hand, to postponing the attack upon it as long as possible and,
on the other, to preparing itself against such an attack. Still,
it is obvious that the combined imperialist forces of the world
will be infinitely better equipped with poison gasses, with air-
planes, with munitions, with resources, and that the Soviet
Union would be doomed to destruction if it had to depend
exclusively upon its own resources for its defense. The one
hope of the victory of the working class in such a war lies in
the fact that the armies that will be sent against the Soviet
Union will consist of workers and that they will defend the
workers' land against the attack of their own master class.
In this situation, the class-conscious workers of the big im-
perialist countries and particularly, of course, the Commim-
ists, must make every eif ort to rally the workers of the world
to the defense of the Soviet Union, to deepen their under-
standing of what the workers of Soviet Russia are accom-
plishing, to strengthen their love for the one land that the
working class can truly call its own.
In the face of this necessity, where is the opposition lead-
ing? The opposition raises the cry that the Commimist Party
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THE DEFENSE OF THE SOVIET UNION 5S
of the Soviet Union does not defend the interests of the pro-
letariat, that the Communist International is no fit leader of
the working class. They cirailate slanderous propaganda in
every country through renegades from communism and ene-
mies of the Communist parties, in which they declare that the
Soviet government is not a workers' and peasants' government,
but a Nepmen's and Kulaks' government, that the Comm\m-
ist Party is not the party of the working class, but the enemy
of the working class. With all of this propaganda, they object-
ively play the role of helping imperialism to prepare its attacks
upon the Soviet Union.
If the Soviet government is not a workers' government,
then the question that the workers of the world will ask them-
selves is: what reason have we to defend the Soviet Union ia
the forthcoming war? If the Communist Party and the
Communist International are not fighting for the interests of
the workers, then what reason have we to follow the leader-
ship of the Communist International against capitalism and
against imperialism? Such is the real effect of the slander-
ous propaganda of the opposition against the Soviet Union and
against the Comm\mist International.
If they were successful, if the working class were to believe
their slanders, then they would be strengthening the imperial-
ist armies, lessening the possibility of turning the imperialist
war into a civil war, strengthening the forces preparing to at-
tack the Soviet Union, and weakening the forces preparing to
defend it. Their propaganda is the more dangerous because
it is disguised in the name of Communism.
Similarly, the opposition weakens the forces of defense in-
side the Soviet Union. By trying to split the Party that leads
the working class, by trying to rally backward non-party ele-
ments against the Communist Party, by violating the discipline
of the Party and the laws of the Soviet Government, they are
objectively playing the role of tearing down from within the
defenses of the Soviet Union. Inside the country as well as
outside of it, they tend to paralyze the will of the working
class and to encourage its enemies.
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56 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
The rerdutioiiary character of any group or party is nd
tested hy what they say, but by n^ere it leads.
The world is divided into two camps on the questien of
Soviet Union. For or against— defense or attack. TThc *
tivides of the o|>po6ition lead it inevitably into the camp of the
attackers, into the camp of the enemies.
How far the opposition has gone in this direction is proTed
not only by their acts but even by their words. For example,
Trotsky wrote a letter to the Control Commission on July 1 1.
1927, taking up the question of defense of the Soviet Union
In this letter, he drew an analogy between himself and tb
Clemenceau group that was fighting in (^position to the Frend
government in 1914 while the Germans were within 80 kilo-
meters of Paris. In this letter, he implies that in the event of
attack upon the Soviet Union, he would feel it his duty tc
imitate Clemenceau, to sweep out the present leadership and
put in its place the leadership of the opposition.
But how could he do this? To whom would he appeal
To the Party? The Party has already rejected his leadership.
He has less than half of one percent of the Party behind him.
Surely half of one percent could not defeat 99xi percent. He
would have to go outside of the Party. He would have to
appeal to the non-party masses. He would find himself sup-
ported by the enemies of the party and would be in the camp
of the enemies in spite of himself. That is the meaning of
the attempted street demonstrations of November 7. That is
where the path of the Opposition leads. And that is what
makes so important the issues involved in this discussion. That
is what makes it so important that every worker should under-
stand what the Soviet Union is, what problems it faces, what
progress it is making, what achievements it is accomplishing,
what the Communist Party is, and what the leadership of the
Communist International means to the workers of the world.
That is what makes it so important that we should struggle
with all our energy to refute the slanderous attacks of the
opposition. The struggle against the opposition is part of the
struggle for the defense of the Soviet tjnion. The struggle
against the opposition is part of the fight against the war dan-
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THE DEFENSE OF THE SOVIET UNION 57
ger, against the forces of imperialism and reaction. In the
face of this attack it is the duty of the awakened workers to
redouble their efforts to let the Workers of this country know
what the Russian revolution means and what it has accom-
plished. We must make eviery worker understand that the
workers of the Soviet Union are building socialism, that the
workers of the Soviet Union are better oflF today than they
were yesterday, that the government of the Soviet Union is
a working class government, that the Communist Party is the
defender of the interests of the workers, that the Communist
International is the leader of the workers of the world in their
struggle against capitalism*
In the war that is coming, every worker must be rallied
to the defense of the government of the Soviet Union, every
worker must rally to the aid of the workers' army and the
workers' government. If the truth is known about the Rus-
sian revolution and the achievements of the workers in the
Soviet Union, we need have no fear as to the outcome of the
struggle. It will end with the victory of the working class,
with the defeat of the workers' enemies and the sweeping of
capitalism and imperialism from the face of the earth.
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PART II
AMERICA DISCUSSES THE OPPOSITION
CHAPTER I
TYPICAL VIEWPOINTS
npHE controversy in the Communist Party of the Soviet
^ Union has caused widespread discussion in the United
States. The discussion has extended far beyond the circles of
the Communist movement, and its closest sympathizers. Rene-
gades from Communism and consistent opponents of the Com-
munist movement have picked it up and sought to settle old
grudges or find new "justifications'* for old positions of antag-
onism to the Soviet Union and the Communist Party. The
capitalist press has filled columns with information and mis-
information, both editorially and in the form of news. The
Jewish daily Forward and other conscious enemies of the
Communist movement have tried to "fish in troubled waters."
Jewish nationalists have made of the question a "Jewish issue.**
Old Mensheviks like Abramovitch have become sudden de-
fenders of "true Communism" in the person of Trotsky,
against those who are abandoriing Communist doctrine. "Trot*-
sky" is a visionary" say these new-found friends of world
uprising, "but he stands for the world revolution. Stalin is
realistic, but he succeeds by abandoning the world revolution —
by unfaithfulness to BolsheVik principles."
It is interesting to examine these discussions by non-Com-
munists, ex-Communists, anti-Communists. They throw ad-
ditional light on the nature of the controversy. They show
where the hopes of our enemies are grounded. And they
throw far more light on the "American scene" itself, on the
nature of the various currents within and without the labor
movement, on the real attitude of various groups and period-
icals toward the Soviet Union, its Communist Party and the
Communist International.
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TYPICAL VIEWPOINTS 59
Unf ortunately, limfitations of space and of time to make the
analysis prevent me from taking up more than a few tj^ical
reactions to the controversy and from analyzing any of them
very exhaustively. I have therefore had to limit myself to a
casual examination of articles in the following papers and
periodicals: Modem Quarterly y Volkszeitung, Advance, A/^«k
tion, New Refublic, World Tomorrow, Jewish Daily Far^
^vard, Reflex, and New York Times. Special attention has
been paid to Eastman and Lore and their respective satellites.
All matters treated here are necessarily fragmentary.
In most of these comments on the controversy in the Com*
munist Party of the SoViet Union, certain type arguments
and viewpoints recur again and again.
TYPICAL VIEWPOINTS
Chief of these are:
1. An attack on Communist discipline, a denial of the
necessity of discipline m a Communist Party, a denial of the
right of a Communist Party to limit general discussion to a
discussion period before a convention and a demand that it
turn itself from a party of action into a permanent debating
society, a denial of the authority of conventions and their right
to settle anything, a denial of the right of a party to expel
those who fundamentally disagree with its program and who
refuse to accept and abide by its decisions.
These attacks come principally from the Mensheviks and
Socialists, who have always denied the Leninist concept of the
Party as a fighting organization built oh the principles of dem-
ocratic centralism, and from renegades and ex-Communists
expelled for refusing to carry out the party program, for vio-
lations of discipline and for un-Communist and anti-Com-
munlist activities.
Such arguments are found in the Socialist Forward, in the
writings of the Mensheviks like Abramovich, and in the writ-
ings of the expelled Communists Lore, Salutsky and Eastman,
where these arguments form the chief matter to the exclusion
of any serious discussion on the fundamental political differ-
ences.
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M THE. TROTSKY OPPOSITION
FREE LANC9 INTELLECTUALS
The same arguments are made by intellectuals on die
fringe of the revolutionary movement who have never been
willing to subordinate their "well-developed" egos to the col-
lective judgment and discipline of the Party, and to do the
difficult work and stand the consequences of being a Commun-
ist in America, where it is far from an easy task, and where
those who worship only the God of success cannot see flashing
successes from day to day.
Such elements come nearer to our movement when the rev-
olution flames up abroad or when the Party is scoring some
notable success as in Passaic, but move away again when the
labor movement suffers defeat, when the Party has to re--
treat, when it goes through a painful period of controversy,
when it is under sharp attack — ^in short, when it is seen that
a revolutionary movement is not built overnight and that much
patience, determination, devotion and unpicturesque and un-
dramatic hard work (often "backstage" rather than "in the
limelight") is reqiiired to build our movement and prepare it
for leading a still politically backward and divided and dis-
organized working class to victory over the most powerful
capitalist class in the world.
Such elements have always sought for "reasons" and argu-
ments to just^ify their not being Communists. They have
found justification in being sniffingly superior persons, far,
far above the battle and able to sit in judgment, to jest and
sneer about, to knock and criticize and to feel dreadfully su-
perior to a movement which they would earn the right and
the ability to criticize only by being active in it and helping to
strengthen it.
They see in the arguments of Trotsky and Zinoviev, in the
attacks of the Opposition upon the party, "Communist argu-
ments" to justify their old position, "Communist reasons" for
not being members of the Commun/ist Party!
ATTACK ON THE PROLETARL\N DICTATORSHIP
2. The second type of viewpoint advanced is an attack upon
the dictatorship of the proletariat, a denial of the necessity on
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TYPICAL VIEWPOINTS 61
^e part of the Soviet Union surrounded by, hostile capitalist
countries to continue 'its restrictions on freedom of speech and
press-
The New York Times puts the question very clearly in an
editorial comment on the defeat of the Opposition. It de-
clares that one of. the results of the defeat will be "the ex-
tinction of the feeble spark of democracy discernible in Trot-
•sky's demand for free discussion. . . • Had that been granted
it is not inconceivable that the despised bourgeois freedom of
-speech might have been extended with time beyond the con-
fines of the Communist Party."
THE BUILDING OF SOCIALISM
3. The third type of viewpoint deals with the question of
the correctness of Commun'ist theory — ^with the possibility of
constructing socialism in the Soviet Union.
Out of the mouths of Communists, the enemies of Com-
munism try to find new arguments to substantiate their old
"theory that the Bolsheviks were wrong, that they should not
have seized power in November, 1917, that Russia is economic-
ally unripe for the building of socialism, that the peasants are
incurably anti-socialist, that the Russian revolution is doomed
to failure and a return to capitalism. These opponents of
Communist theory range from the Mensheviks and Forward
"Socialists to the New York Times.
A CLEVER MANOEUVER
At every turning point of the revolution, the more enlight-
-ened of them has used the subtle trick of hastening to approve
the measures taken by the Communist party and the Soviet
.government but has interpreted them as "realistic steps away
from Communism." Thus they interpreted the NEP, the
grain tax, the concessions policy, the eflFort to secure recogni-
tion by various governments, etc.
While Lenin was alive, he was treated by them as a crafty
realist determined to hold on to power by sacrificing his prin-
ciples, and the Workers Opposlition and other opposition move-
ments were the unpractical dreamers and visionaries faithful
to those ideals which could never work in the real world
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62 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
where human nature is unchanging and hostile to Commun-
ism. Now this argument is applied by Abramovftch, by the
New York Times, etc., to the latest controversy.
The subtlety of their method will be apparent when you
realize that they really agree, as they have alwa3rs agreed, with
Trotsky's wrong estimate of the peasantry as the enemy of
the working class and with the Trotskyite viewpoint of the
impossibility of the construction of socialism in the Soviet
Union, but they declare that Trotsky does not recognize these
things, while Stalin does and is realistically but secretly making^
the Soviet Union a peasant and a capitalist government.
4. As an offshoot of the theory that the peasant is essentially^
hostile to the working class, that the alliance between them is
against the nature of the peasant, that the peasant will become
articulate and lead Russia back to capitalism — come grave ex-
planations to the effect that Stalin is an Asiatic and a peasant,,
that the Soviet Union is now a peasant government, that "Stal-
in's victory means the peasants are the ruling class."
Closely related to the above are the theory of the degenera-
tion of a ruling group, the theory of bonapartism, the theory
of Thermidor, all of which the opposition has unconsciously
absorbed from Menshevik and other bourgeois sources, and
now the Mensheviks and other defenders of capitalism hasten
to quote these viewpdints not as their own, but as the view-
points of the "true Bolsheviks" themselves.
THE THEORY OF DEGENERATION
5. The Opposition has also provided the enemies of the So-
viet Union with new ammunition in their efforts to prove that
capitalism 'is eternal because it is in harmony with "eternal
human nature." If you make the rich poor and abolish the
ruling class, a new rich and a new ruling clique will spring^
up. It happened in the French revolution with Thermidor
and Bonaparte and the victory of the speculators and new
rich of France. It fe happening in Russia with the Kulak,.
Nepman and Bureaucracy with Stalin as the Bonaparte and
the fall of Trotsky (Danton) and Zinoviev (Robespierre) as
the Thermidor. So runs this argument.
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TYPICAL VIEWPOINTS 63
THE QUESTION OF DEFENSE
6. Most dangerous, although least clearly expressed because
the capitalist press does not dare talk frankly about it, is the
comfort being derived from the slanders of the Opposition
agalinst the Soviet Union in connection with the approaching
imperialist attack upon the Soviet Union.
' In the material examined below, the reader will find one
or more of the above matters appearing with all sorts of varia-
tions and in all sorts of combinations, also with varying sub-
jective intentions and motives. I begin first with Max East-
man and his admirers because of the active role that he has
played in disseminating misinformation concerning the sub-
ject in the United States, England and France. Then Lore
and those connected with him, such as Salutsky. Then the
Liberal press. And finally the viewpoint of the New York
Times, organ of finance capital.
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CHAPTER II
THE GOSSIP OF MAX EASTMAN
The opposition has rallied choice elements to its cause in the-
various countries of the world. In Germany it is the expelled
and renegade Communists Maslow, Fisher, Korsch and Katz,
whose activities today consist not in fighting capitalism or"
the government of Germany, but in fighting the Communist !
International and the government of the Soviet Union. In \
France it is Souvarine, another expelled communist, who-
publishes a paper whose whole fire is directed against the Com- !
munist International and the Soviet Union. And so one may
go from country to country and in each it is the renegade, the
ex-communist, who becomes the outstanding apostle of the-
views of the opposition. In the United States, this noble role '
is played by Max Eastman. !
Eastman 'illustrates admirably the kind of elements that are- !
attracted to support of the Opposition and the international |
connections between them. j
In 1925, Eastman published a scurrilous book of old-maid- i
ish catty gossip on the controversy in the C. P. S. U. under the j
title "Since Lenin Died." The atacks upon the Communist^ j
Party of the Soviet Union and its leadership were of so vicious ;
a character, so full of falsification and scandal based even in
many cases on White Guard rumor-factory products,* that^
Trotsky felt called upon to repudiate them,
Eastman, whose aplomb and self- assurance are boundless,
no doubt explains away Trotsky's attack upon his book as^
"forced upon him by the bureaucracy." The only trouble
with this explanation is that it does not jibe with EastmanV
*£astinan even publishes an engagingly frank footnote to one of the choice-
tidbits of gossip which reads: ^There is no mystery about my possession of~
this and the foregoing information j it is all contained in official documentr
stolen by counter-revolutionists and published in Russian, at Berlin, in the*
SosUalistichesky Viestnik. (Like the Macdonald forgeries and the Hearst
Mexican documents — ^B. D. W.) This paper, which is a remnant of Men-
shevism, publishes a great deal of nonsense and irresponsible rumor about
Russia, but the authenticity of these documents is recognized by the BolshevHc^
(I). I took pains of assuring myself - of it absolutely before leaving Rut-
•ia . . ." (Mr. Eastman could teach Mr. Hearst a thing or two about how
to testify before Senate committees on *'*stolen documents"!)
[6+] n I
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THE GOSSIP OF MAX EASTMAN 6$
lescription of Tfotsky as "a proud man, -V "selfless and
"earless," etc. Nor does it harmonize with th^ character of
Trotsky's denunciation of the book.
Thus Trotsky declares:
Trotsky's repudiation of eastman
''Eastman's book is bare of any political value . . . ap-
proaches the events of the inner life of our Party without a
serious political criterion, in a purely psychological manner
... he is nourishing the Menshevist legend on the Bonapartist
character, the pretorian guard character of our army. . . .
"Eastman's assertions that the Central Committee confis-
cated pamphlets or articles of mine in 1923 or 1924 or at
any time, are untrue. . . .Another false assertion is that
Lenin offered me the post of chairman of the Council of
People's Commissars."
". . . conclusions placing our Party and its leaders' in such
a light that the same attentive and thoughtful reader is in-
evitably forced to the question ^ What bonds can unite East-
ntun and this party, or Eastman and the revolution led by this
?artyV^ (Emphasis mine. — B. D. W.)
Eastman's book was published in Great Britain and the
United States and translated in whole or in part into other
languages. Opponents of Communism and lovers of scandal
and gossip made good customers for a book which attacked
the leadersh^ip of the Communist Party and the Communist
International as : "the machine" (p. 33), "the heads of the
bureaucracy" (p. 35); which describes the conventions of the
Party that leads the working class in the Soviet Union in this
wise: "The performance of this convention (the Xlllth)
was a continuance of the deliberately unscrupulous campaign
carried on during the winter (p. 98)." "Nobody can tell
how much Trotsky's sickness played into the hands of his ene-
mies. It is certain that they consciously reckoned with it in
starting this unscrupulous campaign." (p. 96). "It was im-
doubtedly one of the most perfectly packed conventions ever
held in the history of the world." (The whole world, no
less— and in all history ! ) "Their (the delegates' — B.D.W.)
performance reminded me of nothing so much as the Armis-
tice Day exercises in a patriotic American private school."
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66 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
(p, 90.) "Their speeches (those of the leaders — ^B. D. W
and articles . • • would be thrown out of a prize essay ca
test for defective children." (p. 51.)
AN '^ORPHAN*' PARTY
The party that made the revolution and is building socials
in the face of incredible obstacles, Eastman describes in sq
language as is employed in a description of how a single spec
of Zinoviev **8tampeded the whole Russian Communist Par
and produced a condition of intellectual mob-hysteria i
lasted all winter." (p. 60.) Or again: "When Lenin was g«
the party was left, not only with the wisdom he had tauf
them, but also with the irresponsibility, the childlike depec
ence upon his will and judgment. A large family of orpb
suddenly found the sixth part of the terrestrial globe in A
hands . • . and no practice in the art of tackling big pni
lems independently." (pp- 1 00-1 1 .) And so on to the pes
of nausea. ...
But even at the risk of nauseating the working-class readc
I must make one more quotation from Eastman's ^'analysis
It is of interest as an evidence of the profound intellectu
snobbery of Eastman's attitude towards the working-class at
its party.
Eastman feels called upon to explain how it is that i
Communist Party so overwhelmingly repudiated Trotsky, ho
It is that the workers have again and again rejectd his view
points, and why it is that such little support as he had and re
tains is predominantly among intellectuals of petty-bourged
origin. His answer is that it is "'not only because the worka
are inherently more subject to organizational management (ii
means manipulation— B. D. W.) than the intellectual" be
also bcause of the "intellectual complexity of the trick whid
had been played upon them."
EASTMAN USES THE Times
A renegade radical who writes such stuff as that naturalii
discovers (as so many of oiu: tired radicals have discovered)
that he has the columns of the Nw York Times open to hifl
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THE GOSSIP OF MAX EASTMAN 67
for further performances. In October of » 1926, Eastman
availed himself of the privilege to publish in that capitali$t
journal a new slanderous attack upon the Communist Party of
the Soviet UnSon. This new attack Repeated somt of the old
gossip and some new. It ended, with a declaration that the
victory of the present leadership means the rule of the land-
ovrners and the bourgeoisie, "and once more the workers will
have been betrayed, and after all, the famous Russian revolu-
tion will not be more than a bourgeois revolution."
HIS INTERNATIONAL CONNECTtONS
The New York Times paid Eastman a substantial sum of
money for this latest attack upon the Soviet Union and when
he was reproached for receiving money for attacks on the
Soviet Union in a capitalist paper^ he sent a letter to the Nation
in which he declared that he had not kept the money but had
turned it over to French Commun'ists for use in the service of
the Communist movement. Some timie later, the renegade
ex-communist Souvarine, who publishes a pajper which dedi-
cates itself to the task of attacking the Communist Interna-
tional, the French and Russian Communist Parties, and the
Soviet Government, published an acknowledgment of having
received money from Eastman, thus showing the international
connections between all these renegades who, in the guise of
supporting the proposition, attack the Communist. Party and the
Soviet Union.
EASTMAN REVISES MARX
Eastman's activities have not stopped there. He has pro-
ceeded from an attack on the Russian Party and the Commu-
nist International and their leadership to an attack upon Com-
mimism in general, of course in the guise of "improving"
Communism, of making it "more sdientific;" of saving Com-
munist theory and practice from its own baser nature — from
its "metaphysical character."
This "theoretical" contribution to "the science of revolu-
tion" was in part printed pSecemeal in the columns of the
Modem Quarterly (January- April, 1927) and the ^^w
Masses (September, October, November, 1927). '
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68 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
The entire attack on the Communist revolutionary view-
point, theory and practice has finally appeared in book form
in the United States after previous publication (n France and
England. It is entitled "Marx and Lenin" with the sub-title
**The Science of Revolution."
Written in the name of saving Leninism from its own
theory and purifying Marxism from its "non-scientific and
inetaphysical" character, it is a general attack upon the whole
of revolutionary science. Its method is to set up a grotesque
caricature of Marxism, a Marxism that would make its found-
ers turn in their graves. Having set up this straw man, East-
man proceeds bravely to knock him down and tear him to
pieces.
In its viewpoint, it returns to utopianism, mixed not as East-
man believes with the psychology of Freud but With the an-
tiquated psychology of Jeremy Bentham, a metaphysical psy-
chology of "the real nature of man" (p. 191), which, of
course, is timeless and unchanged by the changing material
conditions in which man lives and works and learns and thinks
and feels. .
what's '%RONG*' WITH MARXISM
Eastman "refutes" Marxian economics, the dialectic
method, the materialist interpretation of history, the "wrong"
Marxian attitude towards Darwin, the "wrong" Marxian way
of meeting revisionism (of which "ism" Eastman's work is
one of the worst spedimens), the "wrong" answer of Lenin
to the anarchists, the "wrong" answer of Marx to the Uto-
pians, the "wrong" answer of the Bolsheviks to the Menshe-
Tiks, etc., etc.> etc.
He clamorously puts metaphysics and mysticism out of the
front door on every page, or at least declares he is doing it,
but energetically hauls them in again by the back door.
It is not my purpose to review the book here. There is, how-
ever, one element in the book which concerns us for the pur-
pose of this article, and that is the question of its relation to
die Opposition discussion.
The jacket of the American editSon contains an interesting
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THE GOSSIP OF MAX EASTMAN 69
line in italics which reads: , "This boofe has nothing to do with
the so-called Trotsky controversy." Nevertheless, we cannot
take Eastman's (or the jacket's) word for it. The book has
much to do with the "Trotsky controversy."
A THEORETICAL BASIS FOR "tHERMIDOR"
I do not, of course, mean to imply for an instant that Zino^
viev or Trotsky share any of the stupiid "theories" advanced
in this book. But there are certain chapters in the book which
state in a generalized and heavy abstract theoretical form
Eastman's views on some of the issues involved in the contro-
versy in the Russian Party. This is especially true of such
chapters as "Bureaucratism and Revolutionary Education."
A quotation or two will suffice to illustrate his method.
"A pious repetition of these ideological phrases [of Marx-
ism] will tend to replace the active science of revolution, and
provide a cover for the rebirth of the old system** pp^ 201$
202. (This is the "Thermidor" theory restated in the jargon
of Eastnianian "revolutionary science." — B. D. W.)
"That the , Hegelian-Marxian metaphysics plays straight
into the hands of this enemy, needs no demonstration. . . .
For animistic mysteries have always been employed by an
aristocracy to befuddle the- masses, and the moment the dan-
ger arises of a 'revolutionary' aristocracy — ^a danger which,
only fools will deny-^this materialistic animism stands ready
to do its work. . . . Being a religion, it is the natural prop-
erty of a priestly class. . . ." (pp. 202, 203.) (This is
Eastman's way of expressing the theory of the degeneration
of the leadership of the Communist Party.)
"Moreover, if Lenin ha:d understood his own thinking, he
could have left in his place a body of men better trained to .
carry it forward than those he has left; . . .'*^ (p. 205.)
"They have established in the place of it [of *a great system
of education*] this great solemn fetish of dialectic material-
ism, which is nothing but the old shoes of the Almighty
God." (p. 206.)
At the same time, it is interesting to note that in his earlier
book, "Since Lenin Died," Eastman already incubated the
ferm of the present work. Thus we find on pages 112 and
13 of "Since Lenin Died" such passages as: "It is not diffi-
cult to see the connection between, these three points of dis-*
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70 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
agreement between Trotsky and the triumvirate. Underlying
them all is that one conflict . . . between the ^abstract agitator*
ial* attitude and the attitude of a Marxian engineer engaged
with the 'concrete life problems* of the revolution. • . .
"... a lapse into the old vague talk, the emotional self-
deception, the separation of theory from practice, the fraciical
Vtofianism [emphasis Eastman's] of the pre-Lenin days [all
this is Eastman's affectionate way of referring to Marxism] —
that is what the triumvirate represents in these real disputes
with Trotsky." Similar passages may be found in other parts
of the book.
THE UNION OF THE EXPELLED
Finally, it is interesting ^ note that such opponents of
Marxism-Leninism are the kina of support that the Opposition
has foimd in America. That in every country, it is the ex-
Communist, the expelled Commimist, the anti-Commimist,
who is attaddng Commimism in its own name, that takes up
the banner of the Opposition in its struggles against the Com-
mimist International and Leninism. It is true that Eastman
was repudiated by Trotsky (although all too gently), but East-
man proves to be tied up with Souvarine whom Trotsky never
repudiated. Add to these Maslow and Fisher, Roland Hoist
the "God-seeker," the Italian renegades weary of the struggle
against Fascism, Pollipopolous, the opponent of Macedonian
self-determination and proponent of the liquidation of the
Communist Party of Greece, and all the other petty-bourgeqis
revolutionists gone mad and tired radicals looking for a "Com-
mimist" reason for not participating in the Communist strug-
gle and a chance to justify their absence from the ranks of
the Commimist Party or treachery to the cause of Communism
in the name of Communism itself.
SAMUEL 8CHMALHAUSEN AND THE FREE SPIRIT
Among those "near-Communist," "also-Communist" and
revolutionary radical free-lancers "above Communist dogma"
and Communist discipline, who group themselves around the
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THE GOSSIP OF MAX EASTMAN 71
Jldodem Quarterly^ is a marked trend towards support of the
Opposition in the C. P. S. U. and the seeking of "revolution-
ary" justification for having remained outside of and "supe-
rior" to Communist discipline. What was before shame-faced
evasion now becomes heroic defiance. One can line up with
Trotsky and "defy the apparatus." There is "revolutionary*'
ivarrant for rejecting discipline. It can now be done in the
name of Communism itself, in the name of saving Commu-
nism from the petty dictatorship of the bureaucracy. In fact,
several of the little band of "free spirits" that rally around
this free "Magazine of the Newer Spirit" timidly flirt with
the idea of turning it into an organ of the Opposition in this
country and more openly flirt with Max Eastman to become
the leader of such a movement.* .
Samuel Schmalhausen writes a smart-alecky article in the
November Modem Quarterly^ in sophomoric style, bristling
"with puns, alliteration and wise-cracks, which makes up in
quantity for what it lacks in quality. It takes up 35 pages of
the Quarterly. It consists of "criticizing" in turn liberals,
socialists, ex-Communists and Communists, and must, no
doubt, have giyen much self-satisfaction to the writer in en-
abling him to square a lot of old grudges and to feel superior
to so many of his contemporaries, quite a few of whom he has
scarcely earned the right to criticize.
The article would be of no concern here were it not for the
fact that the few whom Schmalhausen singles out to praise in
the course of his 35 pages of knocks show a definite tendency
on the part of the author to urge the formation of a new party
of an "also-Communist" character with Eastman as its leader.
This is the more interesting because Schmalhausen is no acci-
dental contributor but has been helping to shape the editorial
policies of the Modem Quarterly. Were it not for this fact
it would be unexplainable how the Modem Quarterly or any
other periodical with similar pretensions could give 35 pages
or 35 lines to such puerile stuff.
*NoTs; Calvcrton> editor of the QiMrterly, has disclaimed the. viewpoint
of Schmalhausen and opposes any. suggestion of . mafWng the Quarterly an
opposition organ.
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72 THE TROTSI^Y OPPOSITION
For Lore h^ has only one reproach — ^that he is Wasting his
"s{dendid socialist . . . abilities" on German-speaking Atner-
kans. He pleads with Lore to "devote his abilities to the
American situation among working-class Americans."
A MOSES FOR TIRED RADICALS
Of Max Eastman he demands active leadership of the
American revolutionary movement. Eastman is a "Bolshevik
with a mind of his own." (Most Bolsheviks in America^ ac-
cording to Schmalhausen, "never know what to think until
they have received orders and specifications as to how to pro^
ceed with their matutinal cerebration.")
"Eastman's socialism. has the high merit of being based not
only on the logic of revolution, but as emphatically upon the
psychology of human behavior. It is high time that Eastman
faced the duty of becoming the leader of the younger genera-
tion of revolutionary radicals whose one deep need is a lead-
ership like his, at once courageous and far-seeii^."
Come thou and lead us out of the wilderness of tired radi-
calism and supersophisticated cynicism! is the prayer of Samuel
Schmalhauseh. "There is a lot of splendid courage among
our Communist comrsides: what they lack is insight. . . i
More will and less reverie, great comrade ! "
So Eastman has gotten unto himself a disciple. . . . Like
master, like man ! The kind of disciple can be judged by the
"activities" of Mr. Schmalhausen in recent years. Or by
smart alliterations about Communist discipline — "the rigid
ritual of American Communism oftentimes in practice a left-
-wing fascism. ..."(!)
It is interesting to contrast the gentle treatment given Lore
and the hero-worship given Eastman with the venomous scur-
rility with which Schmalhausen approaches the best type of
Communist leadership developed in America as symbolized in
the person of C. E. Ruthenberg: "The ruthless Ruthenbergs
[Schmalhausen would sacrifice anything for the sake of an
alliteration] love hate too wholeheartedly to be trusted with
the S2ine and scientific task of recreating civilization."
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CHAPTER III
LORE'S BRIDGE TO SOCIALISM
The Volkszeitung is edited by Ludwig Lore, who tries to
run it as an organ for the expression of his personal opinions
and his personal aims. He is a former member of the
Workers (Communist) Party who was expelled by the Party
for incurable opportunism and for refusal to submit to Party
discipline. He has a close intellectual kinship with the view-
points of Trotsky and translates the errors of Trotskyism to
the American environment. He exhibited over a period of
years a lack of understanding of class relationships in the
United States, a failure to understand the role of the farmer,
the possibility of an alliance between the workers and the ex*
pldited sections of the farming population, and an inability to
understand the possibilities of an alliance with oppressed colon-
ial peoples against American imperialism.
In the Communist International, he supported by editorials
in his paper, which he ran as an organ for the expression of his
personal views, every opponent of the line of the International,
He supported editorially Serrati, Levi, Brandler, Trotsky and
others. He had contempt for party discipline, was an oppo-
nent of the necessity for illegal work, and wished a keep a
reputation for being a revolutionary by abstract revolutionary
propaganda only. The reader will recognize on a changed
and diminished American scale many of the characteristics of .
Trotskyism from the above description, especially if there is
added to it the fact that Lore was and remains a master in the
art of cloaking his incurable opportunism in revolutionary
phraseology.
The Volkszeitung pretends not to take sides in the contro-
versy, in order to fish the better in troubled waters to catch a
few fish of its oWn. Lore's position is a confused one and the
confusion is twice confounded by the fact that the opposition
represented an unprincipled alliance of the man Lore most
admires, Leon Trotsky, and the man he most hates, Gregory
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74 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
Zinoviev. This enables Lore to attribute the "bad points" in
the opposition program to Zinoviev and to excusd; Trotsky.
For example, in an editorial of November 27, Lore writes:
"This program (the program. of the opposition) contains
points so unrealistic that one (!) would not wish to credit
them to a Trotsky or a Rakovsky . . . (follows an example
of a reproach level by the opposition against the government
for failing to declare war on Chang Tso Lin after the Peking
raid). "Such bravado," continues Lore, "one might perhaps
have expected of a Zinoviev, but that Trotsky or Rakovsky
should so lightly invoke a war of destruction against the
Soviet Union , . . that one would still a few months ago have
considered an impossibility."
In another place he writes: "At that time he (Trotsky)
still enjoyed the bitter hating opposition of Zinoviev, who now
— alas! — is with him." That "alas!" speaks volumes as to
why Lore cannot give unqualified support to the Opposition.
But even to his old pet abomination, Zinoviev, Lore became
more gentle when Zinoviev had met adversity and was fol-
lowing in the camp of Trotsky. Thus he writes in his edi-
torial of December 20, entitled "Blind, Unconditional Sub-
mission":
"He (Zinoviev) was shoved aside and driven from the
Party which he — ^however one may regard this in our opinion
shame of the revolution — for ten years had served to the best
of his ability."
Lore has always had a close ideological kinship with the
viewpoints of Trotsky. His hatred for Zinoviev, which, as is
usual with Lore, he translates into personal antipathy, was in
its origin due to the fact that Zinoviev as chairman of the
Comintern symbolized at that time the discipline and the line
of the Communist International against which Lore fought
Hence it is with a sigh of relief and a determination to
support more loyally the Trotskyist Opposition, that Lore hails
the news that Zinoviev is trying to make Ms peace with the
Party and find his way back into its ranks. In the Volkszd'
tung of January 17, Lore writes:
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LORE'S BRIDGE TO SOCIALISM 75
^'I.eoii Trotsky (and his followers) had about six months
ago united with the Zinoviev-Kamenev group. Our readers
are informed about this, and our readers also know that we
considered this bedfellowship one of Trotsky's most fatal
mistakes. This Leon Trotsky has also in the meantime real*
ized. The various Canossa steps of Trotsky in the last year
(by this Lore means his attempts to reconcile himself with the
Party), such as the pledge of October, 1926) were attempts
to meet the necessities of this coalition Canossa steps which
were never sincerely intended and therefore alwajrs very
quickly disavowed by the 'penitent' and doubtlessly roused
much mistrust against him — ^Trotsky — in those very circles
whose support he needed. (Lore holds Zinoviev responsible
for Trotsky's not having made a sharper fight against the
Communist Party. — ^B. D. W.)
Of Zinoviev, Lore writes in the same editorial: "The
good man had reckoned on the loyalty of his submissive hire-
lings in the different non-Russian parties and had badly missed
his reckoning." (Such is Lore's picture of the Communist
International.)
The editorial ends: "The leaders of the C. P. of the
Soviet LTnion are making it hellishly difficult for the friends
of the Soviet Union always to keep before their eyes the fact
tliat it is a leadership endowed with the confidence of the
thinking workers, which is carrying on this base policy of re-
venge."
In spite of such editorials and in spite of a systematic propa-
gation of all the worst slanders of the Opposition and even a
readiness to pick up rumors from counter-revolutionary sources
in Berlin, Riga, and any other rumor-factory on the face of
the earth, Lore is very eager to give added weight to his attacks
on the Soviet Union and on the Communist Party by pretend-
ing to be "above both factions."
On the matter of discipline Lore is particularly vicious,
-—much worse than the capitalist press. Thus in a news dis-
patch of December 5, we read: "His (Stalin's) attitude was
that of an inquisitor of coiiscience. He demanded submission,
not merely in acts but also in thoughts." Right below this
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THE TROTSl^
lews'' dispatch is printed a
,ry of the Spanish Inquisritif
**An imperfect confession (
>nfession that did not brii:
nown to the penitent, Sui
sgarded as a backsliding and
yore's view of the demand
.osition should give up its
emain p^itt of the Party that
►asis of a Leninist program aijd
\nd such is Lore's method
Opposition, hrtving once prom»^
nolated its pledge, h no long
ts connection, mailing lists, tf
:an make sure that the cauc'
yeois opponent of the Comi
iiis attack on Communist discipi
Lore in his comparison to the
In his editorial of Decembei
". . . only he who endoi
who evenwluTC nnd at every
as the nitjoriEy of the niome]
only he h worthy to ber a mt
Union." Tht& is Lore*s old cop*
as "Kadaverg-ehorsim" — ^the gW
aimed not iit the American Pi
of the Soviet Union."
In the issue of November
of all in that respect, in an e#
:hine." It pretends to repeat ar,
from Kharkov. It reads in par
"• . . they propose to protect
hrough a special lese majesty ( (
ct of monarchical countries)
^ykov's speech that was explicii
"^ho speaks of Stalin in disrespt.
Luedruecken) shall be arrested
umor-factory produce a worse
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^^Iipiiir'^-
3 9015 01913 9131
a^Uf^O
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76 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
"news" dispatch is printed a brief extract from Lea's "His-
tory of the Spanish Inqui^tlon," which reads:
"An imperfect confessfon (conf essio imperfecta) was every
confession that did not bring also information on heretics
known to the penitent. Such a confession was technically
regarded as a backsliding and punished with death." Such is
Lore's view of the demand made by the Party that the Op-
position should give up its anti-I^eninist views if it wished to
remain part of the Party that is recruited and united on the
basis of a Leninist program and should dissolve its caucuses.
And such is Lore's method of. portraying the fact that the
Opposition i having once promised to disband its caucuses and
violated its pledge, is no longer trusted and is required to give
its connection, mailing lists, etc., to the Party so that the Party
can make sure that the caucus is dissolved. Can any bour-
geois opponent of the , Communist Party be more vicious in
his attack on Communist discipline and the C. P. S. U. than
Lore in his comparison to the Spanish Inquisition?
. In his editorial of December 20, Lore writes:
". . . only he who endorses every dotting of an i, only h?
who everywhere and at every time exactly so thinks and acts
as the majority of the moment desires, wills and commands —
only he is worthy to be a member of the C. P. of the Soviet '
Union." This is Lore's old concept of Communist discipline -
as "Kadavergehorsam" — the obedience of a corpse — ^now
aimed not at the American Party but at the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union."
In the issue of November 27 is probably the worst slander
of all in that respect, in an editorial entitled "The Stalin Ma-
chine." It pretends to repeat and analyze a news item cabled
from Kharkov. It reads in part:
". . . they propose to protect Stalin — ^the 'Man of Steel' —
through a special lese majesty (offensie to majesty, the sedition
act of monarchical countries) paragraph! According to
Rykov's speech that was explicitly decided upon. Every one
who speaks of Stalin in disrespectful fashion (uneherbietigen
Auedruecken) shall be arrested and tried. (Could the Riga
rumor- factory produce a worse lie?B. D. W.) In other
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LORE'S BRIDGE TO SOGIAUSM 77
"words, the Soviet Union is idcBtified with th.^ general secre-
tary of the Communist Party and the thesis is set forth that
every ojBFense of Stalin is equivalent to a delibrate injury of
the Soyiet Union. That that is going a trifle too far should
be clear even to the unconditional believers," To which I
can only add, in Lore's own words, "that that is going a trifle
too far should be clear even to the most unconditional be-
lievers" in Lore and the vile gossip of the anti-Communist
Voikszekung.
Lore uses the occasion of the controversy to take many side-
swipes at the Communist International, the '"brother-parties,"
and, of course, the Workers Party, from which he was ex-
pelled. When the Workers Party sent a telegram expressing
its views on the controversy in the brother-party of the Soviet
Union, Lore speaks of it as the "asked-f or telegram." He
denounces the Central Committee for not holding a nation-
wide discussion and a referendum bef orb taking a stand on
the issue. Nor is he averse tb manufacturing outright lies
about the American Party, any more than he is in the case of
the "lese majesty" yarn concerning the Russian Party. Thus
in his issue of December 4, he states that there is an order
from the Central Committee to the District and County-Com-
mittees of the Workers Party (Lbre knows that there is no
such thing as a County-Committee in the Workers Party) t»
the effect that "all sympathy with the Russian Opposition is to
be castigated by immediate expulsioh from the Party!" Lore
still has a disciple or two in the party who could have told him
that no such order was sent out, so we can only conclude that
Lore has a rumor- factory of his own and does not have to buy
forged documents.
On closer analysis. Lore does not turn out to be as neutral
as he pretends. In his editorial of November 27, we find the
statement:
"In general it will of course be well to reserve judgment
until authentic material about the questions in dispute is at
hand. The literature department of the V.I. A. (Internation-
al Labor Alliance — ^Lore's German Language Party, of which
he has also formed with Salutsky, Boudin, Bellanca, Kutscher
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7S THE TROTSCr OPPOSITION
and other wnegadci aad dnd ndicads aa F»gl^«li sctkin — BL
D. W.) will dMxdy have here the PUtfoim of the Ranaa
Oppondoo, which has been poblohed in Berlin in an antix— t^'
edidcm.'* (Lore does not worry aboot ^'laervin^ jodgmcn^
on the aothenticitj of the platf oim snuggled out of the Soviet
Union and published in the anti-Soviet prev in Beriin and
other parti of Eorope.)
From Lore as a center can be traced an interesting, if
diminudve, series of "interlocking directorates" linking up
with various renegades from and enemies of the Cmnmunist
movement in ths country. First, there is the aforementioned
International Labor Alliance. It was bom very quietl3r in the
columns of the Volkszekung in the form of a litde asso-
ciation for the publication of a four-page weekly English
supplement. In fact, its birth was so quiet that it has never
gotten beyond the stage of still-birth. Nevertheless, its par-
ents, godparents and step-parents are an interesting crew.
There is Boudin, who got lost when the left wing was formed
and separated from the Socialist Par^. He remained in the
"swamp" — the name which Lore used recently editorially as
interchangeable with the ''center** — and remained "^nirlos
vcrsenkt" for a period of eight years. He regards the **Inter-
national Labor Alliance" as, to use his own words, "a home
for hcMneless revolutionists."
Then there is Salutsky, expelled renegade from Commu-
nism, who sold his CcMnmunist principles for a berth from the
bureaucracy of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union
when that union's leadership was in full course of degenera-
tion. His views are taken up in another section of this article.
Then there is Bellanca, agent for the Italian language of the
same Amalgamtaed Bureaucracy, also a renegade from Com-
munism. He is in turn linked up with Niwvo Mundo, Ital-
ian daily largely financed by the Amalgamated Bureaucracy.
These form the right wing or opportunist section of the tiny
alliance.
It is tied up with an ultra-left incurable dual unionist group-
let of men like Kutscher, expelled from the Commimist Party
for refusal to carry out the policy of working in the mass
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LORE^S BRIDGE TO SOCIALISM 79
unions. Similar elements are Kiehn and Burkfaardt. (For
anyone familiar with the Siamese twin character of deviations
from the Communist positron, this alliance of crazy leftism
^th opportunism will furnish no surprise. They are the tWo
faces of the same shield on which is borne the device: Aban-
donment of the struggle in the conservative mass union;)
Lore IS in turn connected up with certain "reporters" — gossip-
mongers — ^in the Soviet Union and in Germany, expelled and
opposition elements. Thus his diminutive Volkszeitung
Supplement Organization earns its right to the pretentious
name of International Labor Alliance. It is Lore's Inter-
national. And if the Opposition in the Soviet Union had
fared better and succeeded in making a split and linking up
with the Souvarines, Maslow-Fishers, etc. > in a "Fourth In-
ternational" Lore and his International and Eastman and his
litde band of admirers of the Schnialhausen type would have
in course of time offered themselves as the American section.
That such an organization as Lore is trying in vain to con-
struct represents a bridge bacjc to the social-democracy and
the A. F. of L bureaucracy, an exiamination of its attitude
toward the struggle against the bureaucracy will reveal. Thus
in the Volkszeitung o{ the 4th of May Lore has an edi-
torial on the attitude of both the VIA and the newly formed
International Labor Alliance toward the struggle in the
unions. The first half declares sympathy with the left wing
in the needle trades fight. The second half is published under
a vicious cartoon republished from a Yiddish humorous paper,
"The Big Stick," depicting two Jewish workers belaboring
each other with big clubs labeled "class struggle." One fol-
lows the Communist Freiheit, the other the Socialist For^
ward. Karl Marx stands in the background amazed and
says: "What has been made of my teachings!"
Lore interprets the cartoon; says it is the best picture he
could imagine of the situation; explains that the two big
clubs are the Forward and the Freiheit; declares both
were built up with the saved pennies of the workers, and that
neither is attacking the capitalist enemy but are being used
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so THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
only against each other. Thus Lore's "sympathy" for the
left wing proves to be "neutrality" and attack on both equally,
vnhesitating concealment of the fact that the struggle of the
left wing against the bureaucracy is part of the struggle against
capitalism, that we cannot defeat capitalism without defeating
its agents in the labor movement.
Lore goes a step further in the editorial, and extends it from
the Jewish unions, where the fight is ostensibly between social-
ist and Communist, although in reality, as I have described
above, to the "entire American labor movement." An under-
standing between Sigman and Hyman and Zimmerman! An
understanding between Green and Woll and Gold and Gross!
That's easy. Give up the fight against the bosses, and you can
reach an understanding with the bosses' agents. But carry on
the fight against capitalism and you must vanquish the first
line of defense of the bosses, their labor lieutenants, their
agents inside the labor movement.
The same deliberate concealment of the real nature of the
fight of the left wing against the socialist bureaucracy as an
essential part of the struggle against capitalism is to be found
repeatedly in the writings of Lore, as, for instance, in the
editorial in the "English Section" entitled "What can the In-
ternational Labor Alliance Accomplish?" This end3 with
die following sentence: "It can, perhaps, teach tolerance so
that, however violently Socialists and Communists may dis-
agree, they may nevertheless realize that each is but part of
labor which is the whole." Yes, Brother Lore, and capital
and labor are "each part of society, which is the whole."
Tolerance is all right between allies, but tolerance between
Socialistic bureaucracy and left wing, between Mensheviks
and Bolsheviks, between Noske and Liebknecht, between ene-
mies of capitalism and agents of capitalism, between those on
the opposite side in the class war is the preaching of class peace
and the abandonment of the struggle. Green and Woll are
also part of the labor movement which is the whole! And
Axelrod, Abr,;imovitch and Noske are also Socialists. You arc
f prming a bridge back to social democracy and the A. F. of L.
bureaucracy for the Salutskys and Lores to cross.
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CHAPTER IV
SALUTSKY EARNS HIS HIRE
J. B. Salutsky (Hardman), another renegade from Com-
munism, expelled from the Party in 1924 for selling his prin-
ciples to the bureaucracy of the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, sees in the action of the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union an opportunity to justify the actions of Hillman
and Beckerman in the Amalgamated and of Green, WoU and
Co. in the A. F. of L, In the Advance of December 9
he draws the analogy in an article entitled "The Double
Standard of Political Morality."
Here he compares the "labor movement" of America (by
which he always means the bureaucracy of the labor move-
ment) with the Soviet Union. Our trade unions, he cries,
are "never absolutely safe." We^ must have a dictatorship in
the unions. But the Soviet Union is in no danger of war.
**There is no present likelihood of any foreign power invad-
ing the territory of the Soviet Union no matter what disagree-
ments members of the government party should develop."
Mr. Salutsky-Hardman is doing noble service for the forces
of imperialism systematically planning new war against the
Soviet Union by his efforts to disarm the workers of the Amal-
gamated by such assurances. But that is not his main purpose.
His purpose is to suggest that revolutionary terror is unjus-
tifiable in so "secure" a land as the Soviet Union, but is jus-
tifi?ible when used by Hillman and Beckerman, Green and
WoU, against militants and progressives in the United States.
"... if members should be permitted to engage in
activities which tend to throw their (the unions') unity in
jeopardy and demoralize their strength, no union will sur-
vive. But groups like the T. U. E. L. insist upon demanding
immunity in America for things much worsie than what they
consider a capital offense in the Soviet Union."
' A shabby piece 6{ typical Salutsky sophistry. A splendid
Comparison, Mr. Salutsky. But you neglect to mention that
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82 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
those who "throw the unions' unity in jeopardy and demoral-
ize their strength** are the Hillmans and Beckermans and
WoUs and Greens, whom you serve so faithfully, and they
deserve a worse fate than the Opposition in the C. P. S. U.
Mr. Salutsky is very dexterous with the word "Opposition'*
as he is with words in general. The American Communists,
he declares, approve the expulsion and annihilation of the Op-
position in the C. P. S. U. "In this country, however, they
are themselves in opposition in the labor movement." How
profound! ^
It is not a question of opposition or administration, Mr^
Salutsky. It is a question of opposition to whaty administra-
tion in whose interests? Agdiinst whose interests?
The administration in the Amalgamated as \n many Amer-
ican unions has become an enemy of the interests of the memr
bers of those unions. The opposition to the policies of the
bureaucracy is opposition to the policies of the bosses. It i$
opposition to the agents of the bosses in the interest of the
rank and file of the trade unions. The opposition defends the
interests of the labor movement in America against a corrupt
capitalist-serving bureaucracy. The fight against the bosses
in America requires a fight against their lieutenants in the
labor movement, the trade union bureaucracy. It is the intro-
ducers of piece-work who tend to demoralize the strength of
the unions and throw their unity into jeopardy. It is the
introducers of production standards. It is those who demoral-
ize by preaching class collaboration. It is those who employ
gangsters against the membership of the union. It is those
who blacklist, blackjack and expel militants. It is those who
demoralize the union and threaten its unity.
The Communists here are fighting for the same thing as
the commimists in the Soviet Union. Not every opposition is
bad. Not every administration is good. The question is —
opposition to what? Administration in whose interests? And
when the question is thus clearly put, the answer cannot be
evaded by juggling and word-play. The militant opposition
in the Amalgamated is fighting on behalf of the same class
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SALUTSKY EARNS HIS HIRE 83
as the Communist Party of the Party Soviet Union is. It is
not as you term it, a question of a ^Mouble standard of politi*
cal morality** but a single standard. The ^^standard of mor-
ality** is in both cases the same — the interests of the working
^lass. And whoever defends the interests of the working
class in the unions of this country must be in opposition to the
bosses and to their agents in the labor movement, to the Hill-
mans and Beckermans, the Sigmans and Kaufmans, the
Greens and WoUs and Lewises — ^yes, and to their hired lick-
spittles, the William English Wallings and J. B. Salutsky-
Hardmans as well.
Just one more word to Mr. Salutsky. The "Save the
unions" slogan adopted by the Workers Party in May of 1927,
and accepted as the central slogan of the T. U. E. L. in its
convention of December, 1927, Salutsky defines as "simply a
shorter term for Tight the existing unions to a finish.* **
Slightly mistaken, Mr. Salutsky. To "save the tmions"
which are in a pretty bad way, we must fight the existing
union-wrecking bureaucracy to a finish. We must finish them
or they'll finish the unions. A fight against the bosses* agents
in the labor movement is a necessary part of the fight to save
and strengthen those unions. We can*t fight the bosses with-
out fighting their agents as well.
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CHAPTER V
ABRAMOVITCH GIVES THE SOCIALIST VIEW
The Socialist press in the United States, such as it is, openly
accepted th?^ view pf the capitalist press as to the issues involved,:
The Netv Leader tytn republished the Hearst forgeries of
"speeches" by Stalin ^nd Bukharin as genuine. The Jewish
Daily Forward rewrote Riga stories, published forgeries, re-
wrote stories from the Times and even from ^he Chicago-
Tribune. ~
Their "fundamental theoretical". article was cpntributed by
the old Menshevik Counter-revolutionist, Abramovitch, and it
is of . more than ^ usual interest representing as it does ^n au-
thoritative Menshevik view.
' Abramovitch. agrees with the Opposition's contention that
the party is going to the right and abandoning Bolshevism. He
explains away the Party'? seven-hour day decision and its pres-
sure on the Kulaks and Nepmen as "leftist phrases in the inner
policy to cover right actions in its foreign policy." This for-
eign policy is one of "surrender to the capitalist regimes," sur-
render of the revolution, surrender of the principles of Bol-
shevism.
Abramovitch agrees also that the Soviet Union has gone
through its Thermidor. The proof is not for him the Soviet
Union's internal policy, but Litvinov's work at the Geneva
Conference !
This "surrender" of Bolshevik principles is inevitable. The
Bolsheviks should never have made a revolution at all. We
Mensheviks told them that conditions were not ripe, that Rus-
sia could not build socialism. But Bolshevism was visionary.
It tried to accomplish the impossible. It has lasted as long as
it has, only by surrendering its principles step by step. "Com-
munism can exist in Russia as a power only so long as it is
descending from the path of Communism." That descent is
practically finished. Every diplomatic victory for the Soviet
Union is a proof of it. Every treaty signed with a capitalist
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ABRAMOYJTCH: GiVES THJ^ SOCIALIST VIEW aj
n^tioi^ is a propf of -it. The repudiation of the opposition js
a proof of it. Russia has reached a "new capitalism of Bol-
shevism." . . . She is now really a part of the League of
Nations!
And what does the opposition represent? "Trotsky is the
representative of the r'evolutiohary part of the Bolshevik
Party,'* ' ' . .
The defeat and disciplining of the opposition is done as a
favor to foreign imperialism. Stalin "jails the naive Bolshe-
vik revolutionists, puts them in jail and assassinates them po-
litically^' in order to prove to capitalist politicians "that it is
possible, to do business with liim." "The attacks on Zinoviev
were a part of the price which Stalin paid for the ^lunch' be-
tween Litvinov and Chamberlain — ^the attack On Rakovsky
was a small present given to Briand for his relations with
Russia."
Abramovitch is extremely annoyed to find that his argu-
ments are actually used by the Bolshevik press against the
Opposition. He complains: "A few weeks ago in one of my
lectures in Riga (of course it would be in Riga— B.D.W.)
I said that the opposition consists of those Bolsheviks who^ are
really desirous of realizing their ideals and that these com-
munists are criticizing Stalin in almost the same way as we
Mensheviks are. As soon as I stated that, a long telegram
was wired to Moscow and right after three long articles ap-
peared in Pravda and Bukharin made a long speech on this
subject!" Too bad!
Even tho Bolshevism is wrong, it is necessary to expose
Stalin as false to it, is Abramovitch's conclusion and he ends
his lengthy article with a stirring appeal to the capitalist na-
tions not to be deluded by appearances. "Some of Stalin's
steps might be more correct than those of the Opposition, but
his general policy is just as dangerous as could be the pplicy of
the lefts." It is the duty of the Mensheviks and Socialists gen-
erally to expose this fact and to awaken "Stalin's foreign
slaves" which is Abramovitch's affectionate way of referring
to the Communists thruout the world. This appeal to, the
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86 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
'*f oreign slaves*' not of capitalism but of communism is too
good to abridge so I give it in full:
'*It is neceisary," reads the appeal in question, "to destroy
the false cries of Stalin to his foreign slaves that he is the real
defender of the revolutionary proletariat and revolutionary
Leninism, while Trotsky and other oppositionists are only
voluntary lackeys of the capitalist bourgeoisie. (Fancy
Abramovitch defending "revolutionary Leninism!") The truth
is: and that is proved by the recent policy of the Soviet Gov-
ernment on foreign policy that the oppositionists are the only
ones who really remained true to the old revolutionary Bolshe-
vism. (Poor Zinoviev, poor Trotsky, they are most unfortu-
nate in their champions. To be defended by Abramovitch
and Eastman!) "It is false, this revolutionary Bolshevism,''
continues Abramovitch, "and the opposition is therefore fol-
lowing a wrong path which cannot lead to any practical re-
sults. But what Stalin is doing means to get away from
Communism and at the same time to assure the world that
'we are building Communism.' "
"If this were a departure from Communism to a conscious
socialist policy we could still forgive this. But a conscious
socialist policy cannot be introduced thru terror and dictator-
ship. Stalin's path is: Concessions to foreign capitalists and
slavery for the Russian people. Such a path and policy cannot
solve the problems of the Russian revolution and the prole-
tariat of the whole world."
One more ^^socialist view." Haim Kantorovich contri-
butes an interesting letter to the New Leader of December
17. An old opponent of bolshevism, his unprincipled career
has led from the I. W. W. to Zionism. Expelled from the
Left Poale Zion organization because he sold his "talents'*
to the right wing of the Jewish socialist bureaucracy, he now
writes for the union-wrecking, anti-soviet organ of the Jewish
Socialist Verband, Die Wecker^ and represents it on the na-
tional Executive Committee of the Socialist Party.
The purpose of his letter in the Leader is not to discuss
the opposition in the C. P. S. U., but to denounce James
Maurer, head of the first American Trade Union Delegation
to the Soviet Union and member pf the National Executive
Committee of the Socialist Party. Kantorovich attacks Maurer
for having seen in tbe achievemeats of the Russian working
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ABRAMOVITCH GIVES THE SOCIALIST VIEW 87
class the accomplishment of that for which the workers of
the world are struggling. "I expected," complains Kantoro-
vich, "a Socialist interpretation of Russia, and a Socialist ap-
preciation of Bolshevism." ... but Maurer's report sounded
like "an editorial from the Daily Worker!^
"He (Maurer) is being convinced that Socialism is really
being built there, that the workers are free, happy and con-
tented, more than in any other country in the world. Not a
word of criticism , . . Comrade Maurer has not found any-
thing in Russia that he could not justify."
Kantorovich hastens to enlighten him, using the arguments
of the Opposition in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
(plus arguments of his own) and sermonizing on the fate of
the opposition. There is far more freedom in the United
States, thinks this enemy of working class rule.
"While the Daily Worker is legally published in the United
States, Trotsky and Zinoviev, the first commander of the Red
Army and the father of the Communist International, cannot
legally publish their platform in Russia. . . . Comrade Maurer
seems to agree with Stalin (on the question of freedom of the
press) though he must know that freedom of the press and
of speech are denied not only to the bourgeois class in Russia
and to the Socialists, but also to the Communists. . . .
"It should not have been hard for Comrade Maurer to
leam that there is freedom in Russia only for the ruling
Stalin clique."
"And the things that Comrade Maurer has not seen! He
has not seen the jobless and the breadless . . . the goods fam-
ine . . . the growth of the new bourgeoisie in the cities and
the Kulak in the villages. . . ."
Kantorovich believes that the opposition group are the true
Bolsheviks and this old opponent of Bolshevism supports them
against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in the
name of Bolshevism and Social Democracy!
"... a bitter fight is going on," he writes, **between the
real founders of Bolshevism and those who call the N£P
socialism (Kantorovich knows the opposition credo by heart) \
'■ between Trotiky, Zinoviev, Radek and other old communttti
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S« THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
and the Stalin and Bucharin group. What is the fight about?
The Trotsky, Zinoviev group maintain that every trace of
Communism in Russia is being abolished, that all thought
about the world revolution is given up, that capitalism is
growing in Russia and that the Russian Soviet Government in
itself is being gradually transformed from a workers gov-
ernment into a peasant and Nep-men government.''
Kantorovich then lectures Maurer on the fact that while
the opposition is becoming more critical of Bolshevism and
Stalin is denouncing them as expressing Menshevist ideas, and
as being "Social-Democratic traitors" Maurer is swallowing
Stalin's viewpoint and thus impliedly accepting this identifica-
tion of Social-Democracy with betrayal of the cause of the
proletariat.
**But if Comrade Maurer does not identify Social Democ-
racy with betrayal and Trotsky with the Social-Democrats,
he may profit by hearing what Trotsky has to say about the
present conditions in Russia. (Kantorovich is right in de-
claring that the slanders of the opposition are of profit to the
Social-Democrats and all other opponents of the Communist
Party and the Soviet Union). In the thesis of the opposition
— Pravda, Nov. 5, 1927 — (Kantorovich is a diligent reader
of the Pravda) it is stated that capitalism grows in the cities,
the Kulak gets richer and more influential in the villages, un^
employment grows, the housing shortage is terrible, and, what
is still worse, the Nep-man and Kulak become more and more
politically influential. . , Zinoviev pictures in the following
words: 'The Nep is growing and you call it Socialism and
are happy about it!'. . . Smilga complains: *You promise a
seven-hour day while the eight-hour day still remains on
paper only.' "
Thus the cunning Social-Democrat quotes his slanders now
in the name of "the real founders of Bolshevism," the "old
Communists," etc., in place of slandering in his own name.
And his purpose, to refute the report of the first American
Trade Union Delegation, to convince trade unionists that
their observations are not correct, to counteract the efFects of
a favorable report that tends to rally the workers of America
to the defense of the Soviet Union!
For year^ thte Social-Democratic opponents of the Soviet
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ABRAMOVITCH GIVES THE SOCIALIST VIEW 89
Government had to content themselves with quotations from
the Mensheviks, from the white-guardists, from Kautsky and
Bauer and others of their own ranks. Now they appeal to
"oli Communists" and "the real founders of Bolshevism,"
but repeat the same old fables. And the tragedy of it is that
their quotations are accurate. That the opposition has be-
come the mouthpiece for the repetition of all these fables
about the impossibility of the construction of Socialism, about
the dictatorship of the apparatus, about the degeneration of
the Soviet Government and the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union, about the failure of the revolution and the
gradual return to capitalism.
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CHAPTER VL
WHAT THE LIBERALS "THINK"
The New Refublic has in general f 6ught shy of the whole
question. It is too busy injecting mysticism into the shreds
of its tattered and soiled rags of liberal virtue to pay much
attention to the Communist International or its leading party.
But a little editorialette in the number of November 23 is
sufficient to show its attitude.
"One of two developments is now probable," declares the
editorial writer, "Either there will be an attempt at a coup
d'etat, headed by Trotsky, still enormously popular with the
masses, or Stalin will move an appreciable distance towards
a personal dictatorship on the Mussolini model." Why cannot
both things happen? The editorial writer is silent on the
question. Why should either happen? Silence equally as
"profound." Personal dictatorship of one or the other.
Bonapardsm on both sides. Such is the manner in which
bankrupt individualist liberalism appraises class forces and
class^ conflicts. For the rest, profoundly vapid efforts to
prove that the workers of the Union of Socialist Soviet Re-
publics are not building a new order of society but a new
religion with communism as its Church-militant and Lenin
as its Godhead. This learned nonsense is contributed in spe-
cial articles by the philosophical doctor of philosophy, Horace
Kallen and ecJioed by the anonymous editorial writer.
The Nation, whose liberalism is somewhat less bankrupt
and in the main gropes mildly leftward while that of the
New Refublic flounders to the right, was until recently less
stupid and more discreet about the history that is being made
in the Soviet Union. Its tenth anniversary number, altho
it had some of the defects that might have been anticipated
in such a paper> was a performance that put the correqx>Qding
number of the professedly more proletarian New Masses to
shame.
.The Nation until February. 1, contented itself with m
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WHAT THE LIBERALS "THINK" 91
article by its Russian "expert" Louis Fisher, as its sole con-
tribution to the controversy. The article does its author little
credit as a political analyst of events he was fairly close to.
He sees, a$ the kernel of thre whole controversy, "city or pro-
letarian opposition against too pronounced pro-peasant ten-
dencies in the party." This is accepting the viewpoint of the
opposition and vulgarizing it somewhat. He fails to realize
that the highest type of proletarian or city political develop-
ment is precisely that form of development which views the
proletariat not as in antagonism with the peasantry, but in
alliance with it under proletarian hegemony, and the highest
proletarian or city policies are precisely those conducive to the
maintenance and strengthening of that alliance and that hege-
mony so that the proletariat can lead the peasar^try with it to
the building of socialism. It is the expression of the syndi-
calism or trade union narrowness of the less politically devel*
oped sections of the urban proletariat that can lead to the
theory that the interests of peasant and worker are antagonistic
and that can forego for the proletariat the role of the leader
of all the oppressed and exploited masses in favor of "super
proletarian narrowness" and antagonism to the idea that the
proletarian dictatorship is conceived also in the interests of die
peasantry insofar as the interests of worker and peasant are
identical. Lenin was expressing the highest development of
urban proletarian political theory and practice when he said:
"The working class will Use its control of the state pow«r
to satisfy by revolutionary means the needs of the peasantry."
In its issue of February 1, 1928, The Nation suddenly de-
parts from its attitude of "judicial calm" to make room in
its pages for a column and a half of the most vicious slander
-^-apparently trying to outdo the more orthodox capitalist
press. The editorial bristles with atrocity stuff. Stalin be-
comes a "reactionary personal dictator" and a "newcomer"
(after 25 years of Bolshevism!), he represents "that con-
servative tendency ever to be associated with excessive pciv
sonal power" and Trotsky is pictured as about to "be shot in
the back while trying to escape in the wilderness of Central
Asia!" The least the editorial thrill-inventor might give the
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92 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
Russian coihmunists credit for is for the "unspeakably'^ pub-
lic way in which they try and execute those whom they feel
it necessary to execute. Surely, the respectable Nation has
often enough complained about that. What Riga rumor-
monger landed in the oflice of the Nation and is responsible
for the blood-curdling picture of fantastic gossip it is im-
possible to say but that thfe visit of some such fertile inventor
is responsible is obvious. The "editorial'* even adds one new
gem to the Riga arsenal. It reads:
"Sir Austen Chamberlain during the Geneva conference
was quoted as saying (the Nation doesn't even trouble to say
who quoted him or to whom he said it — ^B. D. W.) that
England could not enter into conversations with Russia for
th^ simple reason that 'Trotsky had not yet been shot against
a wall.'"*
Whoever is responsible for that story is wasting his talents
on the Nation, He could get a job as a feature correspondent
on Russian atrocities with the Chicago Tribune' or could take
Nossevitsky's place from under his nose.
The World Tomorroiv, a. magazine of Christian Liberal-
ism, sweeps asfde the "psychological method" with the re-
mark, "of course there are the personal hatreds involved, but
that is by no means all the story," (Editorial, Jan., 1928.)
The rest of the story is the old tale of Trotsky representing
the workers and Stalin the peasants^ Trotsky being for world
revolution and Stalin wanting to limit socialism to a single
country. As its "analysis" is stated in compact form, I quote
the part dealing with these questions in full:
"1. Trotsky stood for the rapid industrialization of Russia:
Stalin and his group are satisfied with the peasant predomi-
nance.
"2. Trotsky wanted to shift the burdens of the state from
the city population to the peasant ^ Stalin's program includes
peasant relief.
"3. Trotsky does not believe that Russia will be able to
survive as the only revolutionary country j he wants world
wide agitation for further revolt. Stalin's face is turned to
internal affairs ^ he wants the friendship of other nations.
"Stalin's victory," the editorial concludes, ". . . . means
the pesuants are the ruling class.'*
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CHAPTER Vil.
TROTSKYISM AS A "JEWISH*' ISSUE
The most amusing variety of attack upon the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union in the guise of enlightenment on
the opposition question is the attack in the name of Jewish
nationalism. The Jewish bourgeois press has treated the whole
matter as a question of expulsion of Jewish communists.
In business circles, petty labor-hating Jewish merchants and
cloak manuf iacturers who regard Communism as a scourge of
God and membership in the Communist Party on the part of
their workmen or relatives as a terrible calaitiity, suddenly
burst into lamentations because Trotsky has been deprived of
the priceless privilege of membership in that same party.
Counter-revolutionary circles that have been the source of
many jokes about the supposed Jewish nature of communism,
begot a joke of another color to the effect that Stalin re-
sembled Moses in that the one had led the Jews out of Egypt
and the other had led them out of the Communist Interna*-
tional.
The Riga rumor-factory produced a "document" from
the Central Committees calling upon the peasants not to fol-
low up the expulsion of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky by
pogroms against the Jews in general.
The RefleXy a magazine of Jewish "liberalism," devoted
considerable space in the November issue to the discussion of
the controversy and kindred questioils. Its editor, S. M.
Melamed, wrote the leading article entitled, "St. Paul and
Trotsky." Franz Oppenheimer contributed an article en-
titled "Marxism and Leninism." And W. Gordin, an ar-
ticle of vicious gossip and poison entitled, "Lenin as I Knew
Him."
Franz Oppenheimer advances four related theses: 1. that
Leninism is not Marxism; 2. that they are not building
socialism in Russia today but "an extensive and crass State
Capitalism"; 3. that Trotsky is defending impossible Marx^-
[93] Digitized by Google
94 THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
ism against realistic opportunism; and 4, that the ^^social
problem of our days will be solved not in Russia but in the
United States . . . which will be God's own country indeed,
serving Europe as a shining example^ with peace and pltxsty
for all imitators."
It is interesting to note how every opponent of commun*
ism, be his angle of a|^roach what it may, jumps at the op»
portunity to prove his old thesis that socialism is impossible in
Russia by echoing the opposition's arguments as to state cafK
italism, deviation from communism, degeneration and sur^
render to the peasantry. Oppenheimer declares: "The stub-*
born opposition of Trotsky against the Stalin administration is
nothing else but the struggle between Marxian economics and
sage Real-Politik resting content^ for the time being, with
State Capitalism. No other terms can be applied to a socie^
permitting thirty million peasants to manage as they choose
and to sell their produce for cash in an open market." The
goal of the commimists he pronounces ^Wattainable." They-
have maintained their "minority dictatorship" only by "ally*
ing themselves with the peasants at the expense of their ulti-
mate ideal." Trotsky had to be swept aside because he
represented Utopian, impossibilist true Marxism and defended
it against this betrayal.
W. Gordin's vile gossip is not worth dwelling on. Suffice
it to note that he uses more coarsely Eastman's "psychological
method" of explaining all happenings in terms of the per-
sonal traits of the individuals involved. He regards Kameney
as the inventor of "the Lenin cult ... contrived chiefly as a
means of getting rid of Trotsky who naturally had to succeed
Lenin as dictator." He turns the usual legend to the effect
that the whole controversy is a struggle for power into its
truly capitalist form as a struggle for the possession of Rus-
sia's economic resources.
". ; . under the cover of this red smoke screen lie inexhaust-
ible wells of oil, priceless gold mines, countless factories, shops
and stores; who will manage them? who will rule thefii? is
equivalent to the question: who will possess them?" This is
a Jewish pawnbroker's interpretation of history.
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TROTSKYISM AS A **JEW1SH'» ISSUE 9S
S. M. Melamed sees in Trotsky "the incarnation of the
ivrath, anger and bitterness of a race tortured since the de*
stniction of the ancient Roman Empire. ... He is the *Big
Bertha' on the battlef ront between Jew and Slav."
Between Lenin and Trotsky he sees a peculiar division of
labor in which "Lenin did all the arguing, but Trotsky, the
organizing. . • . None of Lenin's plans and, schemes could
stabilize the Red regime. Trotsky's organization of the Red
Army and reorganization of the Russian railroads did estab-
lish Soviet Russia as a world power." What St. Paul was
to Christ, Trotsky was to Lenin.
"If Lenin was the fedeeiher, Trotsky is the prophet, and
like the prophet of the old redeemer, he too may have to
pay the penalty for his prophecy. Trotsky, like St. Paul, is
. in love with and attracted to the city. He has only contempt
for the village and for peasants. Hailing from the city, he
is not the least interested in the village and its welfare. This
very contempt for the village and love for the city so charac-
teristic of St. Paul, too, may yet cost him his head. Already
it has cost him his position. The present heads of the gov-
ernment, Kalenln, Rykov.and Stalin, have the village back-
ground i their main interest is the welfare of the peasants.
Not 80 with Trotsky. The difference between him and his
colleagues is traced to that fact alone."
A few randon^ selections from the "better" sort of capital-
ist press comments are sufficient to show that they backed the
opposition in its struggle against communist discipline and the
fundamental law of the proletarian dictatorship, keenly con-
scious of the fact that the violation of communist discipline
in the name of communism and of Soviet law in the name
of Soviet interests is nevertheless a violation and paves the
way for the activities of other sorts of opposition. This was
long ago expressed by the Menshevik Dan in these words:
"By their criticism of the existing system, which is almost
a literal repetition of the criticism made by the Social-Demo^
crats, the Bolshevik Opposition is preparing the people's
niinds . . . for the adoption of a positive platform of Social-
Democracy."
The Times expresses the same thing in its lamentation over
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% THE TROTSKY OPPOSITION
the defeat of the Opposition. It declares in. an editorial of
December 20 that one of the effects of that defeat will be
*^e extinction of the feeble spark of democracy discernible
in Trotsky's demand for free discussion. . . . Had that been
granted, it is not inconceivable that the despised bourgeoisie
freedom of speech might have extended with time beyond the
confines of the Communist Party." In other words, the
breakdown of communist discipline is a step in the restoration
of capitalism.
The Times also accepts the opposition's estimate of the pol-
icy of the Party as a policy of compromise, of opportunism,
of moving to the right, of abandoning the world revolution,
of national narrowness, of peasant policy, etc. "Stalin thinks
nationally," says the Times editorial of November 17, "and
Trotsky thinks in terms of world revolution." By accepting
the Opposition's estimate of the Party, the Tim.es and the cap-
italist press generally are able to get some comfort out of the
defeat of the opposition. Incidentally, it is important to note
that the Opposition is not original in its estimate. The capital-
ist press has always tried to lessen the influence of the Russian
example among the workers of the rest of the world by con-
tinually predicting and announcing the degeneration of the
Communist Party. "Observers of the Russian scene," de-
clares the same editorial of November 17, "have long been
aware of one basic paradox: the attempts to establish Marxian
socialism, which is an industrial philosophy, in an overwhelm-
ingly agricultural nation." For the capitalist press (as for
the Kautskys and Bauers and theoreticians of the Social-Dem-
ocracy) it is axiomatic that socialism cannot be built in the
Soviet Union and that the Bolshevik revolution cannot be suc-
cessful. Hence, each success is sedulously described as a devia-
tion from the platform of communism.
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